The Changing South:


The way of life in the South was changing: the extremely rich white plantation owners saw many threats to their way of life: their land ravaged by the war, their laborers freed from them, and the economic base of the South began moving away from agriculture.


A classic Southern Plantation


Henry W. Grady created the Atl C sti i


on tuton, a


publication where he called for a ―New South‖ – a South built on industrialization (no longer solely on agriculture) with closer ties to businesses based in the North. Richard H. Edmonds was a leader of the ―farm to factory‖ movement. He wanted to encourage Northern businesses to invest in the South‘s economy by joining with Southerners to build mills. This way, the cotton could be processed where it was harvested instead of being shipped all the way North. The number of mills in the South grew from 160 to 400 from 1880 to 1900 (the yearT is set.)T


ttl ox he Li e F esbegins with the Hubbard ttl ox


family discussing a business deal with Mr. Marshall from Chicago about building a mill, which would take advantage of the cheap labor in the South—namely freed slaves and poor whites.


anti c


This shift to industry promoted the rise of a merchant class of white men who were business-oriented and intent on maximizing money and opportunity in this changing South. This new, North-infused economy was eclipsing the pre-War way of life. The old plantation owners were resistant to these new business plans. Therefore, this class of white men who were willing to move forward became the new ruling class of the South. In T


he Li e F es, this old way of ttl ox


life is represented by the character Birdie and her attachment to Lionnet, her family‘s plantation, which she idealizes in her memory.


A mill on former farming land


Many African-Americans of the Reconstruction age in the South, as numerous generations before them, dreamt of escaping to the North. They believed the North to be a place of freedom and opportunity. Many of the Southern African- Americans did travel North, most notably in the 1920s during the Great Migration. The search for equal opportunity, both for those African-Americans who journeyed North and those who stayed South, continued throughout the twentieth century and led to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.


he Li e F es


Share-croppers in a field in the South at the turn of the Twentieth Century


6 Erwin Mills near Durham, NC


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13