A New South?:The South, 1877-1900

North vs. South in 1861

• Wealth: 25%

• Farmland: 25%

• Railroad Milage: 29%

• Factory Production: 9%

• Population: 29%

The South in 1877

• Run by Pre-Civil War Elites and Veterans of the Civil War

• Not Fully Segregated

• Cotton Dependent

• Poor

The New South: Henry Grady

• 1886: Henry Grady Calls for a New South

Fuel for Industrializing

• Southern Pride

• Southern Poverty Provides Labor

• Inefficiency of Sharecropping

Industrialization: 1877-1900

• Steel Mills—Birmingham, Alabama

• Textiles—The Carolinas

• Tobacco and Soft Drinks– Cigarettes: James Duke– Coca-Cola – Dr. John Pemberton– Dr. Pepper – Charles Alderton– Pepsi – Caleb Bradham

• Railroads—Double from 1880 to 1890

Dr. John Pemberton, Inventor of Coca-Cola

Problems

• Limited Growth: 1860-1900 - .2%

• Per Capita Income:– 1860: 72% of National Average– 1880: 52%– 1920: 62%

• Wages are low; Southerners can't buy much to support Southern industry

• Low Education Spending = lack of skilled workers

• Capital Problems – Businesses can't get money to grow

Growth of Southern Cities

• Centers of Industry and Commerce

• Better Transportation = More connected to outside

• Alienation from the countryside– Country thinks cities are SINFUL– City folk think country folk are in-bred yokels

The Cotton Trap

• There is always a market for cotton

• But cotton keeps getting less valuable, so you end up in debt

• Creditors only accept cotton as payment!

• A vicious circle

Southern Agrarian Revolt

• Lower Interest Credit

• Lower Rail Shipping Rates

• Lower Food Prices

• Lower Necessity Prices

• Higher Crop Prices

Organized Protest

• The Grange: Farmer Social Clubs → Protest

• The Southern Farmer’s Alliance– Political Protest + Social Help + Christianity– Whites only!

• The Colored Farmer’s Alliance– Farmer's alliance for Blacks only!

• After 1890, Farm Prices Plummet– Farmer's Alliances collapse

Charles Macune,Leader of the Farmer’s Alliances

• Doctor, Journalist, Farmer

• Strong supporter of farm co-operatives

• Proposed 'Subtreasury system' of government warehouses and loans based on crops deposited there

Women in the New South

• Southerners restricted women even more than the North

• Urban Middle Class Women still had too much time on their hands

• Church Work

• Women’s Christian Temperance Union

• Memorials: United Daughters of the Confederacy (1894)

• Women’s Clubs: Social → Protest

1877-1890: An Uncertain System

• A New Black Generation Challenged Discrimination

• Increasingly poor whites respond with violence

• Lynchmobs– 1892: 235 Lynchings– 1882-1903: Almost 2000 lynchings– Grew out of confrontations in business and

politics

Segregation

• Rising in South, Declining in North

• Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896, 7-1)– “separate but equal”: Allows discrimination

by race if facilities are “equal”– Only Justice Harlan dissents

Consequences of Plessy vs. Ferguson

• Massive discrimination ensues: “Jim Crow” laws

• Voting Disenfranchisement– Poll Taxes– Literacy Tests– Knowledge Tests– Many whites exempted by 'Grandfather' clauses

• Racism is rampant

Black Responses

• Many blacks move to cities to create their own private communities

• Fraternal Orders pooled resources

– North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (1898)

• Black Education:

– 60-70% of Urban kids in school

– 81 Black Universities by 1899

• Black Women pushed to build community; less likely to be lynched.

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

• Emphasized self-improvement, education, industry, and the Black community making itself wealthier

• But he also counseled avoiding head-on confrontation with whites– Atlanta Compromise: Blacks promise to stay

out of politics and Whites will leave them be to be productive in their home communities.

• Some Blacks see this as selling out!

A Tuskegee Classroom

The Tuskeegee Institute

• Founded on the Hampton model in 1881

• Emphasis on Teacher Instruction and Practical (Craft) Education

• Co-Educational

George Washington Carver (1864-1943)

• Director of Agricultural Research

• Urged crop rotation

• Urged new crops: soybeans, sweet potatoes, peanuts