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Five years after the Civil War, North Carolina Republican state
senator John W. Stephens was found murdered inside the Caswell
County Courthouse. Stephens fought for the rights of freedpeople,
and his killing by the Ku Klux Klan ultimately led to insurrection,
Governor William W. Holden's impeachment, and the early unwinding
of Reconstruction in North Carolina. In recounting Stephens's
murder, the subsequent investigation and court proceedings, and the
long-delayed confessions that revealed what actually happened at
the courthouse in 1870, Drew A. Swanson tells a story of race,
politics, and social power shaped by violence and profit. The
struggle for dominance in Reconstruction-era rural North Carolina,
Swanson argues, was an economic and ecological transformation.
Arson, beating, and murder became tools to control people and
landscapes, and the ramifications of this violence continued long
afterward. The failure to prosecute anyone for decades after John
Stephens's assassination left behind a vacuum, as each side shaped
its own memory of Stephens and his murder. The malleability of and
contested storytelling around Stephens's legacy presents a window
into the struggle to control the future of the South.
Five years after the Civil War, North Carolina Republican state
senator John W. Stephens was found murdered inside the Caswell
County Courthouse. Stephens fought for the rights of freedpeople,
and his killing by the Ku Klux Klan ultimately led to insurrection,
Governor William W. Holden's impeachment, and the early unwinding
of Reconstruction in North Carolina. In recounting Stephens's
murder, the subsequent investigation and court proceedings, and the
long-delayed confessions that revealed what actually happened at
the courthouse in 1870, Drew A. Swanson tells a story of race,
politics, and social power shaped by violence and profit. The
struggle for dominance in Reconstruction-era rural North Carolina,
Swanson argues, was an economic and ecological transformation.
Arson, beating, and murder became tools to control people and
landscapes, and the ramifications of this violence continued long
afterward. The failure to prosecute anyone for decades after John
Stephens's assassination left behind a vacuum, as each side shaped
its own memory of Stephens and his murder. The malleability of and
contested storytelling around Stephens's legacy presents a window
into the struggle to control the future of the South.
Georgia's Planting Prelate consists of notes on the life of the
Reverend Stephen Elliott, a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the mid-1800s and the only presiding bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.
These notes are accompanied by the full text of the bishop's
address on horticulture given in 1851 in Macon, which displays his
remarkable knowledge of southern agriculture.
Georgia's Planting Prelate consists of notes on the life of the
Reverend Stephen Elliott, a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the mid-1800s and the only presiding bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.
These notes are accompanied by the full text of the bishop's
address on horticulture given in 1851 in Macon, which displays his
remarkable knowledge of southern agriculture.
Beyond the Mountains explores the ways in which Appalachia often
served as a laboratory for the exploration and practice of American
conceptions of nature. The region operated alternately as frontier,
wilderness, rural hinterland, region of subsistence agriculture,
bastion of yeoman farmers, and place to experiment with
modernization. In these various takes on the southern mountains,
scattered across time and space, both mountain residents and
outsiders consistently believed that the region's environment made
Appalachia distinctive, for better or worse. With chapters
dedicated to microhistories focused on particular commodities, Drew
A. Swanson builds upon recent Appalachian studies scholarship,
emphasizing the diversity of a region so long considered a
homogenous backwater. While Appalachia has a recognizable and real
coherence rooted in folkways, agriculture, and politics (among
other things), it is also a region of varied environments, people,
and histories. These discrete stories are, however, linked through
the power of conceptualizing nature and work together to reveal the
ways in which ideas and uses of nature often created a sense of
identity in Appalachia. Delving into the environmental history of
the region reveals that Appalachian environments, rather than
separating the mountains from the broader world, often served to
connect the region to outside places.
Why do we preserve certain landscapes while developing others
without restraint? Drew A. Swanson's in-depth look at Wormsloe
plantation, located on the salt marshes outside of Savannah,
Georgia, explores that question while revealing the broad
historical forces that have shaped the lowcountry South.
Wormsloe is one of the most historic and ecologically significant
stretches of the Georgia coast. It has remained in the hands of one
family from 1736, when Georgia's Trustees granted it to Noble
Jones, through the 1970s, when much of Wormsloe was ceded to
Georgia for the creation of a state historic site. It has served as
a guard post against aggression from Spanish Florida; a node in an
emerging cotton economy connected to far-flung places like
Lancashire and India; a retreat for pleasure and leisure; and a
carefully maintained historic site and green space. Like many
lowcountry places, Wormsloe is inextricably tied to regional,
national, and global environments and is the product of
transatlantic exchanges.
Swanson argues that while visitors to Wormsloe value what they
perceive to be an "authentic," undisturbed place, this landscape is
actually the product of aggressive management over generations. He
also finds that Wormsloe is an ideal place to get at hidden
stories, such as African American environmental and agricultural
knowledge, conceptions of health and disease, the relationship
between manual labor and views of nature, and the ties between
historic preservation and natural resource conservation. "Remaking
Wormsloe Plantation" connects this distinct Georgia place to the
broader world, adding depth and nuance to the understanding of our
own conceptions of nature and history.
An exploration of the rise of the crop strain that came to dominate
the American tobacco industry and its toll on the Southern
landscape that produced it Drew A. Swanson has written an
"environmental" history about a crop of great historical and
economic significance: American tobacco. A preferred agricultural
product for much of the South, the tobacco plant would ultimately
degrade the land that nurtured it, but as the author provocatively
argues, the choice of crop initially made perfect agrarian as well
as financial sense for southern planters. Swanson, who brings to
his narrative the experience of having grown up on a working
Virginia tobacco farm, explores how one attempt at agricultural
permanence went seriously awry. He weaves together social,
agricultural, and cultural history of the Piedmont region and
illustrates how ideas about race and landscape management became
entangled under slavery and afterward. Challenging long-held
perceptions, this innovative study examines not only the material
relationships that connected crop, land, and people but also the
justifications that encouraged tobacco farming in the region.
Beyond the Mountains explores the ways in which Appalachia often
served as a laboratory for the exploration and practice of American
conceptions of nature. The region operated alternately as frontier,
wilderness, rural hinterland, region of subsistence agriculture,
bastion of yeoman farmers, and place to experiment with
modernization. In these various takes on the southern mountains,
scattered across time and space, both mountain residents and
outsiders consistently believed that the region's environment made
Appalachia distinctive, for better or worse. With chapters
dedicated to microhistories focused on particular commodities, Drew
A. Swanson builds upon recent Appalachian studies scholarship,
emphasizing the diversity of a region so long considered a
homogenous backwater. While Appalachia has a recognizable and real
coherence rooted in folkways, agriculture, and politics (among
other things), it is also a region of varied environments, people,
and histories. These discrete stories are, however, linked through
the power of conceptualizing nature and work together to reveal the
ways in which ideas and uses of nature often created a sense of
identity in Appalachia. Delving into the environmental history of
the region reveals that Appalachian environments, rather than
separating the mountains from the broader world, often served to
connect the region to outside places.
Why do we preserve certain landscapes while developing others
without restraint? Drew A. Swanson's in-depth look at Wormsloe
plantation, located on the salt marshes outside of Savannah,
Georgia, explores that question while revealing the broad
historical forces that have shaped the lowcountry South.
Wormsloe is one of the most historic and ecologically significant
stretches of the Georgia coast. It has remained in the hands of one
family from 1736, when Georgia's Trustees granted it to Noble
Jones, through the 1970s, when much of Wormsloe was ceded to
Georgia for the creation of a state historic site. It has served as
a guard post against aggression from Spanish Florida; a node in an
emerging cotton economy connected to far-flung places like
Lancashire and India; a retreat for pleasure and leisure; and a
carefully maintained historic site and green space. Like many
lowcountry places, Wormsloe is inextricably tied to regional,
national, and global environments and is the product of
transatlantic exchanges.
Swanson argues that while visitors to Wormsloe value what they
perceive to be an "authentic," undisturbed place, this landscape is
actually the product of aggressive management over generations. He
also finds that Wormsloe is an ideal place to get at hidden
stories, such as African American environmental and agricultural
knowledge, conceptions of health and disease, the relationship
between manual labor and views of nature, and the ties between
historic preservation and natural resource conservation. "Remaking
Wormsloe Plantation" connects this distinct Georgia place to the
broader world, adding depth and nuance to the understanding of our
own conceptions of nature and history.
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