Southern White Society

Southern White Society

Attempts at Manufacturing • Daniel Pratt—Prattville, Alabama • Joseph Reid Anderson—Tredegar Ironworks

Daniel Pratt Prattville, Alabama Helped ease Reconstruction for Alabama after the Civil War

Tredegar Works, 1830s Iron Works, Richmond, VA Implemented use of slave labor

Unpopularity of Industry • Cavalier Image • Special way of living based on traditional values • Cavalier image was not the reality most southerners thought it was  Myth • Capitalist minded planters

White “Society” in the Old South • Only a few were planters • Only a few were managerial or professionals—mostly Ministers and Lawyers • Large Yeoman class  Plain Folk • Poor whites

Slaveholders in 1850 • 68,820 have only 1 slave • 105,683 have 2 to 4 slaves • 80,765 have 5 to 9 • 54,595 have 10 to 19 • 29,733 have 20 to 49 • 6,196 have 50 to 99 • 1,479 have 100 to 199 • 187 have 200-299 • 56 have 300-499 • 11 have 500 more • 347,575 slaveholders in 1850

Honor in the South • Face to face honor • code of chivalry – dueling to settle disputes and placing great importance on defending the honor of their ladies • Ex. Preston Brooks attacking Charles Sumner • Encouraged aristocratic values of white women

White Women and the “Southern Lady” • “Women, like children, have but one right, and that is the right to protection. The right to protection involves the obligation to obey.” • George Fitzhugh • What does this tell you about the roles of white women in the south as it compares to women in the north?

Southern “Ladies” • Support role  husband and children • White women were even more domesticated in the South than the North  rarely left homes • Code of honor or chivalry

Southern Ladies • On smaller farms and plantations white women often played a key role in day-to-day activities • Roles might include supervision of slaves in the field or to make clothes for the family. Contact with the outside world would be rare • Educational opportunities for southern white women were few and most did not progress beyond primary school

Southern Ladies • Birth rate was higher, but so was infant mortality • Southern white male infidelity

The Common People or “plain folk” • Yeoman Farmers  subsistence farmers • Difficult to compete with cash crop marketplace • Educational opportunities were few or non-existent

Hill People • Why they did not object to the aristocratic social system in which they lived? • Hill people of western North Carolina and West Virginia • Hardly any slaves • Believed in union over southern lifestyle • During Civil War  some fought for the Union

The Common People living in the aristocratic South • Dependency of slave system • Needed the financial backing of the rich in order to operate their farms from year-to-year • Some were even related to their rich neighbors and unlikely to oppose the majority view. They came to feel secure in their lifestyle and fiercely defended the southern way of life as the Civil War approached

The Common People • There was also a group of southern whites who were almost completely off the “social radar” • These were the “crackers” or “poor white trash” who lived on land no one else wanted – swamps and pine barrens • At times they would work as laborers for their neighbors – both rich and common • Clay eaters

Support of Slavery? • Most who opposed lacked the physical strength to do something about it • Racism  immune to poverty • This was the bond that united all southern whites in the years before the Civil War – the bond of racial supremacy

Southern White Society