Plain Folk of the Old South
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''Plain Folk of the Old South'' is a 1949 book by
Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
historian
Frank Lawrence Owsley Frank Lawrence Owsley (January 20, 1890 – October 21, 1956) was an American historian who taught at Vanderbilt University for most of his career, where he specialized in Southern history and was a member of the Southern Agrarians. He is notori ...
, one of the
Southern Agrarians The Southern Agrarians were twelve American Southerners who wrote an agrarian literary manifesto in 1930. They and their essay collection, ''I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition'', contributed to the Southern Renaissance, t ...
. In it he used statistical data to analyze the makeup of Southern society, contending that
yeoman farmer Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...
s made up a larger middle class than was generally thought.


Historical perspectives

Historians have long debated the social, economic, and political roles of Southern
class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
es. Terms used by scholars for the self-sufficient farmers at the middle economic level include "common people" and "yeomen." At the lowest level were the struggling
poor white Poor White is a sociocultural classification used to describe economically disadvantaged Whites in the English-speaking world, especially White Americans with low incomes. In the United States, Poor White (or Poor Whites of the South for ...
s, known disparagingly in some areas of the South as " Crackers."Hyde (2005) In the colonial and antebellum years, subsistence farmers tended to settle in the back country and uplands. They generally did not raise
commodity crops A cash crop or profit crop is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate marketed crops from staple crop (or "subsistence crop") ...
and owned few or no
slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
s. Jeffersonian and
Jacksonian Democrats Jacksonian democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy in the United States that expanded suffrage to most white men over the age of 21, and restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, And ...
favored the term "
yeoman Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...
" for a land-owning farmer. It emphasized an independent political spirit and economic self-reliance.


Views of Olmsted, Dodd, and Phillips

Northerners such as
Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...
, who traveled in and wrote about the 1850s South, through the early 20th-century historians such as William E. Dodd and Ulrich B. Phillips, assessed common southerners as minor players in the
antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ...
social, economic, and political life of the South. Twentieth-century romantic portrayals of the antebellum South, such as
Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...
's novel ''
Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Wind may also refer to: Music * ''Gone with the Wind'' ...
'' (1936) and the 1939 film adaptation, mostly ignored the yeomen. The nostalgic view of the South emphasized the
elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
planter class The planter class, known alternatively in the United States as the Southern aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste of pan-American society that dominated 17th and 18th century agricultural markets. The Atlantic slave trade permitted p ...
of wealth and refinement, controlling large plantations and numerous slaves. Novelist
Erskine Caldwell Erskine Preston Caldwell (December 17, 1903 – April 11, 1987) was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as '' Tobacco Road'' (1 ...
's '' Tobacco Road'' portrayed the degraded condition of impoverished whites dwelling beyond the great plantations.


Frank Lawrence Owsley

The major challenge to the view of planter dominance came from historian
Frank Lawrence Owsley Frank Lawrence Owsley (January 20, 1890 – October 21, 1956) was an American historian who taught at Vanderbilt University for most of his career, where he specialized in Southern history and was a member of the Southern Agrarians. He is notori ...
in ''Plain Folk of the Old South'' (1949). His work ignited a long historiographical debate. Owsley started with the work of Daniel R. Hundley, who in 1860 had defined the southern middle class as "farmers, planters, traders, storekeepers, artisans, mechanics, a few manufacturers, a goodly number of country school teachers, and a host of half-fledged
country lawyers In the United States, a country lawyer or county-seat lawyer is an attorney at law living and practicing primarily in a rural area or town, or an attorney pursuing a rural or small-town legal practice. In such areas, the county seat is an importa ...
, doctors, parsons, and the like". To find these people, Owsley turned to the name-by-name files on the manuscript federal census. Using their own newly invented codes, the Owsleys created databases from the manuscript federal census returns, tax and trial records, and local government documents and wills. They gathered data on all southerners. Historian Vernon Burton described Owsley's ''Plain Folk of the Old South'', as "one of the most influential works on southern history ever written". ''Plain Folk'' argued that southern society was not dominated by planter aristocrats, but that yeoman farmers played a significant role in it. The religion, language, and culture of these common people created a democratic "plain folk" society. Critics say Owsley overemphasized the size of the southern landholding middle class, while excluding the large class of
poor white Poor White is a sociocultural classification used to describe economically disadvantaged Whites in the English-speaking world, especially White Americans with low incomes. In the United States, Poor White (or Poor Whites of the South for ...
s who owned neither land nor slaves. Owsley believed that shared economic interests united southern farmers; critics suggest the vast difference in economic classes between the elite and subsistence farmers meant they did not have the same values or outlook.


Recent scholarship

In his study of
Edgefield County Edgefield County is a county located on the western border of the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 25,657. Its county seat and largest municipality is Edgefield. The county was established on March 12, 17 ...
,
South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...
, Orville Vernon Burton classified white society into the poor, the yeoman middle class, and the elite. A clear line demarcated the elite, but according to Burton, the line between poor and yeoman was less distinct. Stephanie McCurry argues that yeomen were clearly distinguished from poor whites by their ownership of land (real property). Yeomen were "self-working farmers", distinct from the elite because they physically labored on their land alongside any slaves they owned. Planters with numerous slaves had work that was essentially managerial, and often they supervised an overseer rather than the slaves themselves. Wetherington (2005) argues the plain folk (of Georgia) supported secession to defend their families, homes, and notions of white liberty. During the war, the established patriarchy continued to control the home front and kept it functioning, even though growing numbers of plain folk joined the new wartime poor. Wetherington suggests that their localism and racism dovetailed with a republican ideology founded on Jeffersonian notions of an "economically independent yeomanry sharing common interests". Plain folk during the war raised subsistence crops and vegetables and relied on a free and open range to hunt hogs. Examples of these conditions can be seen in the award-winning novel ''Cold Mountain''. Before the war, they became more active in the cotton and slave markets, but plain folk remained unwilling to jeopardize their self-sufficiency and the stability of their neighborhoods for the economic interests of planters. The soldiers had their own reasons for fighting. First and foremost, they sought to protect hearth and home from Yankee threats.
White supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
and masculinity depended on slavery, which Lincoln's Republicans threatened. Plain-folk concepts of masculinity explain why so many men enlisted: they wanted to be worthy of the privileges of men, including the affections of female patriots. By March 1862, the piney woods region of Georgia had a 60% enlistment rate, comparable to that found in planter areas. As the war dragged on, hardship became a way of life. Wetherington reports that enough men remained home to preserve the paternalistic social order, but there were too few to prevent mounting deprivation. Wartime shortages increased the economic divide between planters and yeoman farmers; nevertheless, some planters took seriously their paternalistic obligations by selling their corn to plain folk at the official Confederate rate "out of a spirit of patriotism." Wetherington's argument weakens other scholars' suggestions that class conflict led to Confederate defeat. More damaging to Confederate nationalism was the growing localism that grew, as areas had to fend for themselves as
William Tecumseh Sherman William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his com ...
's forces came nearer. During Reconstruction Era after the war, plain folk split. Most supported the conservative (or Democratic Party) position, but some were "
Scalawags In United States history, the term scalawag (sometimes spelled scallawag or scallywag) referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the American Civil War. As with the term '' carpet ...
" who supported the Republican Party.Hahn (1983)


See also

*
Culture of the Southern United States The culture of the Southern United States, Southern culture, or Southern heritage, is a subculture of the United States. The combination of its unique history and the fact that many Southerners maintain—and even nurture—an identity separate ...
*
Jeffersonian democracy Jeffersonian democracy, named after its advocate Thomas Jefferson, was one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The Jeffersonians were deeply committed to American republicanism, which ...
*''
The Impending Crisis of the South ''The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It'' is an 1857 book by Hinton Rowan Helper, who declares himself a proud Southerner. It was written mostly in Baltimore, but it would have been illegal to publish it there, as he pointed out. It wa ...
'', an 1857 anti-slavery critique by North Carolina writer
Hinton Rowan Helper Hinton Rowan Helper (December 27, 1829 – March 9, 1909) was an American Southern critic of slavery during the 1850s. In 1857, he published a book that he dedicated to the "nonslaveholding whites" of the South. '' The Impending Crisis of the S ...
*
The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry The Grange, officially named The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, is a social organization in the United States that encourages families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and ...
, a farmers organization founded in 1867 and still in operation *
Sharecropping Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...
, where the farmer does not own the land *
Yeoman Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...
, the independent farmer


References


Further reading

* * Atack, Jeremy. "The Agricultural Ladder Revisited: A New Look at an Old Question with Some Data for 1860," ''Agricultural History'' Vol. 63, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 1–2
in JSTOR
* Atack, Jeremy. "Tenants and Yeomen in the Nineteenth Century," ''Agricultural History,'' Vol. 62, No. 3, (Summer, 1988), pp. 6–3
in JSTOR
*Bolton, Charles C. "Planters, Plain Folk, and Poor Whites in the Old South." in Lacy K. Ford, ed., ''A Companion to the Civil War and Reconstruction,'' (2005) 75–93. * Bolton, Charles C. ''Poor Whites of the Antebellum South: Tenants and Laborers in Central North Carolina and Northeast Mississippi'' (Duke University Press, 1994). * Bruce, Dickson D. Jr. ''And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain Folk Camp Meeting Religion, 1800–1845'' (1974) * Burton, Orville Vernon. ''In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina'' (1985) *Campbell, Randolph B. Campbell and Richard G. Lowe. ''Planters & Plain Folk: Agriculture in Antebellum Texas.'' (1987) * Campbell, Randolph B. "Planters and Plain Folks: The Social Structure of the Antebellum South," in John B. Boles and Evelyn Thomas Nolen, eds., ''Interpreting Southern History''(1987), 48–77; *Campbell, Randolph B. Campbell and Richard G. Lowe. ''Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas'' (1977) * Carey, Anthony Gene. "Frank L. Owsley's Plain Folk of the Old South after Fifty Years," in Glenn Feldman, ed., ''Reading Southern History: Essays on Interpreters and Interpretations'' (2001) * Cash, Wilbur J. ''The Mind of the South'' (1941), famous classic * Flynt, J. Wayne ''Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites'' (1979). deals with 20th century. * Cecil-Fronsman, Bill. ''Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina'' (1992) * Delfino, Susanna, Michele Gillespie, and Louis M. Kyriakoudes, eds. ''Southern Society and Its Transformation'' (U of Missouri Press; 2011) 248pp. Scholarly essays on ante-bellum working poor, non-slaveholding whites, and small planters and other "middling" property holders * Genovese, Eugene D. "Yeomen Farmers in a Slaveholders' Democracy," ''Agricultural History'' Vol. 49, No. 2 (Apr. 1975), pp. 331–34
in JSTOR
* Hahn, Steven. ''The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850–1890'' (1983) * Harris, J. William. ''Plain Folk and Gentry in a Slave Society: White Liberty and Black Slavery in Augusta's Hinterlands'' (1985) * Hyde, Samuel C. Jr. ed., ''Plain Folk of the South Revisited'' (1997). * * Hyde, Samuel C. Jr. "Plain Folk Yeomanry in the Antebellum South," in John Boles Jr., ed., ''Companion to the American South,'' (2004) pp 139–55 * Hundley, Daniel R. ''Social Relations in Our Southern States'' (1860; reprint 1979) * Linden, Fabian. "Economic Democracy in the Slave South: An Appraisal of Some Recent Views," ''Journal of Negro History'', 31 (April 1946), 140–8
in JSTOR
emphasizes statistical inequality * Kwas, Mary L. "Simon T. Sanders and the Meredith Clan: The Case for Kinship Studies,” ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' (Oct. 2006): 250–273. * Lowe, Richard G. and Randolph B. Campbell, ''Planters and Plain Folk: Agriculture in Antebellum Texas'' (1987) * * McCurry, Stephanie. ''Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country'' (1995), * McWhiney, Grady. ''In Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South'' (1988) * Morgan, Edmund S. ''American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia'' (1975). *Newby, I. A. ''Plain Folk in the New South: Social Change and Cultural Persistence, 1880–1915'' (1989). concentrates on the poorest whites * * * * * Owsley, Frank Lawrence. ''Plain Folk of the Old South'' (1949), the classic study * * * Sarson, Steven, "Yeoman Farmers in a Planters' Republic: Socioeconomic Conditions and Relations in Early National Prince George's County, Maryland,” ''Journal of the Early Republic,'' 29 (Spring 2009), 63–99. * * * Wetherington, Mark V. ''Plain Folk's Fight: The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia'' (2005) * Wiley, Bell I. ''The Plain People of the Confederacy'' (1963) *Wilkison, Kyle G. ''Yeomen, Sharecroppers and Socialists: Plain Folk Protest in Texas, 1870–1914.'' (2008). * * Woodward, C. Vann. ''Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel'' (1938). on Georgia leader 1890–192
online edition
* , a statistical critique of Owsley {{Southern Agrarians 1949 non-fiction books 20th-century history books American middle class Culture of the Southern United States English-American history Antebellum South Social class in the United States Scotch-Irish American history Southern Agrarians Yeomen