I. The Newness of the New South
  A. An industrial and urban South
The “newness” of the New South concerned the economy, especially the rise of industry and a corresponding urbanization.    
    1. Birmingham, Alabama epitomized the one aspect of the New South as iron and steel mills emerged in the city.
    2. The southern textile industry also grew, especially in the Piedmont.
    3. The tobacco and soft drink industries also became important economic aspects of the South
    4. Southern railroad construction boomed in the 1880s, tying the section together and stimulating the rise of interior cities.


  B. The limits of industrial and urban growth
    1. Southern urban and industrial growth was rapid but barely kept pace with the northern boom.
    2. A weak agricultural economy and high rural birthrate kept wages in the South low and undermined the southern economy.  Consumer demand was low limiting the market for southern manufacturing goods. Low wages also had other negative effects, including keeping immigrants away.
    3. The South remained a section apart. The Civil War had wiped out its capital resources, making it a colony of the North. Investment seemed riskier making the South dependent on numerous small investors.


  C. Farms to cities: impact on southern society
    1. Industrialization had a huge impact on the South.
    2. Failed farmers moved to textile villages but by 1900, almost one-third of the textile mill work force were children under fourteen and women.
    3. Between 1880 and 1900, the gap between rural and urban areas widened.
    4. The urban South attracted the region’s talented and ambitious young men.


II. The Southern Agrarian Revolt
  A. Cotton and credit
    1. Railroad construction allowed farmers to plant more cotton, but the region became an importer of food.
    2. The cash-poor economy meant credit dominated and cotton was the only commodity easily converted into cash and so became the only one accepted for credit.
    3. The web of credit extended from farmers to local merchants to city merchants.   

B. Southern farmers organize, 1877-1892
    1. Declining conditions led farmers to fight for improvements. They supported lower interest rates, easier credit, regulation of railroad freight rates, and lower commodity prices.
    2. Redeemer governments represented large landowners and merchants stimulating small farmer organizations.
    3. By 1875, nearly 250,000 southern farmers had joined the Patrons of Husbandry, often called the Grange. The leaders were large farmers.
    4. The most powerful farm reform organization was the Southern Farmers’ Alliance that originated in Texas. It became a surrogate government and church for many small farmers. It developed into the People’s Party.
  C. Southern populists
    1. Facing growing financial pressures in the 1880s and early 1890s combined with the failure of the major political parties to address their concerns, northern and southern farmers joined the Alliance and support the People’s Party.
    2. The People’s Party supported the direct election of U. S. senators, an income tax, government ownership of railroads, women's suffrage, and other credit easing proposals.
    3. Southern populists were ambivalent about blacks but populists in Texas and Georgia openly appealed for black votes.
    4. In the 1892 election, Populists made inroads in some southern state legislators.


III. Women in the New South
  A. Church work and preserving memories
    1. Church work provided an avenue for southern women to enter the public arena. They founded home missions to promote industrial education among the poor and help working-class women become self-sufficient.
    2. Religion led southern white women to join the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
    3. The reform movement among middle-class southern white women was conservative in nature.

  B. Women’s clubs
    1. A broader spectrum of southern middle-class women joined women’s clubs that were church-sponsored or memorial organizations.
    2. Women’s clubs often federated into a larger organization and frequently discussed political issues.
    3. The activities of black women’s clubs paralleled  those of white women’s clubs.
    4. Public white women’s clubs maintained white solidarity.
    5. The plight of young white working-class and farm women was the primary interest of most  southern white women’s clubs.

IV. Settling the Race Issue
  A. The fluidity of southern race relations, 1877-1890
    1. Race relations remained fluid between 1877 and the early 1890s, many blacks voted and held office.
    2. Segregation was the rule in churches, schools, some organizations, and some public places, but whites and blacks conducted business with each other and otherwise maintained cordial relations.
    3. During the 1880s, blacks joined interracial unions and were active in the Republican Party.

  B. The white backlash
   1. As young blacks demanded full participation in American society, white Southerners of the same generation resented the changed status of blacks.
    2. The South’s deteriorating rural economy and the volatile politics of the late 1880s and early 1890s heightened tensions between the races. Racial rhetoric and violence escalated.

  C. Lynch law
    1. White mobs lynched nearly 2,000 black Southerners between 1882 and 1903.
    2. Memphis journalist Ida B. Wells launched an anti-lynching crusade.


  D. Segregation by law
    1. Southern white lawmakers tried to bolster white solidarity and guarantee black subservience in the 1890s by legalized segregation and disfranchisement of black voters.
    2. In the 1870s, racial segregation in public places was spreading in southern cities and ending in northern urban areas.   
    3. New segregation legislation focused on railroads and providing separate but equal facilities.
    4. In 1896, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal was constitutional in the Plessy v. Ferguson case.
    5. Jim Crow laws extended racial segregation.

  E. Disfranchisement
    1. The movement to reduce or eliminate the black vote in the South began in the 1800s.   
    2. Disfranchisement included a variety of measures such as complicating the registration and voting process as well as instituting the secret ballot.
    3. The poll tax and the grandfather clauses also helped eliminate black voters.
    4. blacks protested disfranchisement vigorously but to no avail.

  F. A national consensus on race
   1. In the 1890s, apparently a majority of Americans agreed that blacks were inferior and should be treated as second-class citizens.
    2. Popular culture stereotypes combined with intellectual and political opinions in the North supported southern policy.

  G. Response of the black community
    1. By the 1880s, a new, black middle class had emerged in the South.  Centered in the city, business and professional blacks served a primarily black clientele.
    2. Black women played an increasingly active and prominent role in their communities. Black women’s clubs developed to address the new era in race relations.
    3. Booker T. Washington advocated learning industrial skills to help blacks gain self-respect and economic independence. He supported the Atlanta Compromise.
    4. W.E.B DuBois challenged Washington and supported self-help, education, and black pride, helping found the NAACP.

V. Conclusion
•    In 1900, the South was more like the rest of the nation than at any other time since 1800.
•    White Southerners promoted national reconciliation but maintained the peculiarities of the region.
•    The New South was both American and southern.