|
Showing 1 - 3 of
3 matches in All Departments
For most historians, the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries saw the hostilities of the Civil War and the dashed hopes
of Reconstruction give way to the nationalizing forces of cultural
reunion, a process that is said to have downplayed sectional
grievances and celebrated racial and industrial harmony. In truth,
says Natalie J. Ring, this buoyant mythology competed with an
equally powerful and far-reaching set of representations of the
backward Problem South--one that shaped and reflected attempts by
northern philanthropists, southern liberals, and federal experts to
rehabilitate and reform the country's benighted region. Ring
rewrites the history of sectional reconciliation and demonstrates
how this group used the persuasive language of social science and
regionalism to reconcile the paradox of poverty and progress by
suggesting that the region was moving through an evolutionary
period of "readjustment" toward a more perfect state of
civilization.
In addition, "The Problem South" contends that the transformation
of the region into a mission field and laboratory for social change
took place in a transnational moment of reform. Ambitious efforts
to improve the economic welfare of the southern farmer, eradicate
such diseases as malaria and hookworm, educate the southern
populace, "uplift" poor whites, and solve the brewing "race
problem" mirrored the colonial problems vexing the architects of
empire around the globe. It was no coincidence, Ring argues, that
the regulatory state's efforts to solve the "southern problem" and
reformers' increasing reliance on social scientific methodology
occurred during the height of U.S. imperial expansion.
For most historians, the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries saw the hostilities of the Civil War and the dashed hopes
of Reconstruction give way to the nationalizing forces of cultural
reunion, a process that is said to have downplayed sectional
grievances and celebrated racial and industrial harmony. In truth,
says Natalie J. Ring, this buoyant mythology competed with an
equally powerful and far-reaching set of representations of the
backward Problem South--one that shaped and reflected attempts by
northern philanthropists, southern liberals, and federal experts to
rehabilitate and reform the country's benighted region. Ring
rewrites the history of sectional reconciliation and demonstrates
how this group used the persuasive language of social science and
regionalism to reconcile the paradox of poverty and progress by
suggesting that the region was moving through an evolutionary
period of "readjustment" toward a more perfect state of
civilization.
In addition, "The Problem South" contends that the transformation
of the region into a mission field and laboratory for social change
took place in a transnational moment of reform. Ambitious efforts
to improve the economic welfare of the southern farmer, eradicate
such diseases as malaria and hookworm, educate the southern
populace, "uplift" poor whites, and solve the brewing "race
problem" mirrored the colonial problems vexing the architects of
empire around the globe. It was no coincidence, Ring argues, that
the regulatory state's efforts to solve the "southern problem" and
reformers' increasing reliance on social scientific methodology
occurred during the height of U.S. imperial expansion.
Policing, incarceration, capital punishment: these forms of crime
control were crucial elements of Jim Crow regimes. White
southerners relied on them to assert and maintain racial power,
which led to the growth of modern state bureaucracies that eclipsed
traditions of local sovereignty. Friction between the demands of
white supremacy and white southern suspicions of state power
created a distinctive criminal justice system in the South,
elements of which are still apparent today across the United
States. In this collection, Amy Louise Wood and Natalie J. Ring
present nine groundbreaking essays about the carceral system and
its development over time. Topics range from activism against
police brutality to the peculiar path of southern prison reform to
the fraught introduction of the electric chair. The essays tell
nuanced stories of rapidly changing state institutions, political
leaders who sought to manage them, and African Americans who
appealed to the regulatory state to protect their rights.
Contributors: Pippa Holloway, Tammy Ingram, Brandon T. Jett, Seth
Kotch, Talitha L. LeFlouria, Vivien Miller, Silvan Niedermeier, K.
Stephen Prince, and Amy Louise Wood
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|