Southern Issues 2: Books and the South
A Special Section on Books and the South
The election of Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1977 launched a thousand Southern-themed publications. The South, so long a subject of fascination and debate, found itself thrust once more into the national spotlight. This obscure issue of Book Forum is worth discussing, which, to my knowledge, is nowhere to be found online (until now). I saw it mentioned in a footnote while researching my article on Memphis State University Press.
1. That's Publishing: Reading and Reviewing in the South by Leslie Lilenfeld
The Civil War remains the one climactic event in this country’s history. It produced William Faulkner. And it was yesterday; in the South you never get away from it. When you’re not reviewing books about the Civil War, you’re reviewing books about someone’s relatives in the war, or the history and mind of the South since the war. - William Starr
Companies flocked southward like Yankee Snowbirds. The region found itself culturally and economically relevant once more. In Nashville, the Ingram Book Company flourished. The Southern reader still turned toward the past—toward The War that had carved their fields and shaped their blood—but their tastes were becoming caught in the same currents as the nation. This homogenization of taste, however, did not diminish the role of newspaper book reviewers like Jonathan Yardley, Bill Starr, and Mabel Simmons.
Saul Bellow is a tin horn next to Walker Percy. - Jonathan Yardley
In Savannah, booksellers Esther and Edwin Shaver noted a preference among their customers for hardbound volumes, a mix of current bestsellers and the time-honored Southern classics. Lilenfeld’s piece speaks of Southern literature, of how history and place had shaped its voice, a voice that had given rise to some of America’s greatest writers. In the end, the South was a land both changing and unchanged, still unmistakably Southern, even as it’s being absorbed into the plant-based propositional pudding sans-serif-branded economic zone, JUST America™.
Esther Shaver says Southerners have always been interested in genealogy; it has nothing at all to do with Alex Haley’s book. You just can’t dismiss tradition when you talk about the South.
2. Publishing in the South: Directors of Ten Southern University Presses Speak Out
The 1930s saw the emergence of Southern university presses in a region designated by the Roosevelt administration as “Economic Problem Number 1.” Southern writers—those not writing fiction, anyway—found little chance to see their words set down in print. In 1977, the presses continued to publish works on the South’s history, culture, and stories, to capture a region refusing to be simplified. They also fancied themselves as the region’s conscience, some using their books to update good Southerners’ firmware and to nudge those behind the times. Publishing was changing. Technology advanced, costs rose, and the white-collared Leviathans were hungry.1 To survive, the presses danced a delicate jig, one foot in the ivory tower, the other in the town square.
Matthew N. Hodgson: Director of the University of North Carolina Press.
“Is there something different about being a university press in the South?” The answer, of course, is yes. When The University of North Carolina Press was founded 55 years ago, we discovered ourselves to be the only professionally staffed, continuously operating, general book publisher in the states that composed the old Confederacy.
Mr. Hodgson’s essay got my blood up. Let’s see if I can get yours going.
Hodgson writes, “During the years of the Great Depression the Press was sustained by grants from major national foundations to enable it to continue its activist role in the modernization of Southern thought.”
“Jamie, pull that up real quick. Zoom in.”
“continue its activist role in the modernization of Southern thought”
He continues:
Undoubtedly the role of the book is changing in the South. While the region undoubtedly will continue to produce its share of gifted creative writers and literary critics, I think it unlikely that they will be much influenced by the traditions of the past—if for no other reason than that younger people will have been little exposed to them.
The changes that have occurred in the South during the past twenty years have been infinitely greater than those that occurred during the preceding century. With the election of President Carter, this region rejoined the Union not only in substance but in spirit.
Hmmm.
As for the future, we look forward to publishing more books about the potential problems that a prospering—and increasingly industrialized—region is likely to face. These will include environmental and economic studies, and many books designed to capture for posterity the fast-disappearing folkways of a once distinctive, but now rapidly changing society.
The South is a place where tradition and progress wrestle in the dirt. Looks like more and more Southerners have CTE from all the hits over the years—better to have dementia than be backward. Progress never was a good sport. Occasionally the mask slips, revealing a director of a Southern university press, who, if you squint just right, resembles one of those real estate developers who levels a farm, clear-cutting all that’s green (why should he care, he’s color blind) for a new neighborhood—Steely Farm Estates—or something like that.
The bookman is a pinch more cultured and not so heavy-handed. He might have nudged a developer in the general direction of Steely Farm—it was in the way of progress—all the experts and scientists said so. How can you blame him? I mean, heck, he has a PhD! Plus, he just published Houdini Hearths: The Vanishing Southern Farm, a new book “designed to capture for posterity the fast-disappearing” farms of the South. But I could just be reading into things. I’m sure he’s a gentleman and definitely not a Communist.
Leslie E. Phillabaum: Director of Louisiana State University Press.
It’s wonderful what having a President from your part of the country can do for you. Not only can it get you nationwide press coverage of such vital concerns as the internal squabbles of a small Baptist church and the impending move of a gas station operator because the old town just ain’t the same no more, it can also generate lengthy and detailed analyses of the past, present, and future of the region in nearly all the major news media and provoke repeated inquiries as to whether the balance of economic and political power isn’t slipping your way—and whether your climate isn’t improving to boot. Though it may not have captured the attention of the rest of the nation, we’re used to this kind of study of where we are and whither we goest.
Since before The War there have been articles and books and symposia about how the South is changing. Some have predicted the imminent demise of the region (The Vanishing South, or, to quote Esquire: “How the Cracker Crumbled”). Most, however, have been reasonably upbeat: The New South, The Rising South, The Enduring South, The Advancing South, and—in a phrase that brings a tear to every Rebel eye—Albert Bushnell Hart’s The Southern South. There is, of course, the politically well-known Solid South.
It would be incorrect to contend [tradition] is what the South is all about, but it would not, I think, be wrong to say that tradition has been very important to the South and to its people, probably far more so than in any other region of the country. And it has thus played a large role in how publishing has developed here.
Bruce F. Denbo: Director of the University Press of Kentucky.
In the face of this metamorphosis, the South has revived rather than diminished its interest in the past. Never wholly a part of the general worship of progress, millions of Southerners held the fundamentalist doctrine that human nature was corrupt and the world evil anyhow. Those with more worldly interests rather followed Calhoun’s view of progress as progress upward through the ranks to the estate of country gentlemen, with slaves—and later machines—to do the dirty work. When suspicion first began to emerge that Americans just might not build the perfect society, the South was undismayed. When ultimate disaster appeared to threaten the nation, the South began to sense that those elements formerly contributing to its status as the nation’s worst economic problem were now about to become blessings.
Ralph Stephens: Director of the University of Georgia Press.
It is refreshing nowadays to consider a manuscript that is the result of high-level scholarship—one that reflects analysis and synthesis, a churning in the mind, a bringing to bear on the material a wealth of experience, learning, and wisdom.
James D. Simmons: Director of Memphis State University Press.
Memphis State University Press is unusual among the Southern university presses both because it is the publishing arm of an urban university and because the Mid-South is essentially an intellectual construct as opposed to a widely recognized topographic reality. This doesn’t mean that our peculiar physical characteristics are indistinguishable but that those elements which combine to describe our physical region are those of interaction between extremes rather than those which appear fixed to human perception…. For a time we were encouraged by the chamber of commerce to consider our region to be “mid-america,” a phrase that soon proved unserviceable and we are once again residents of the Mid-South.
Louis T. Iglehart: Director of the University of Tennessee Press.
The truth is that regional books from Tennessee in combination with similar books from other Southern presses are transmitting a much clearer and more accurate picture of the South—within the region and to observers outside. Importantly, the books in toto are giving those of us within the South a better sense of place. Not all the published findings are positive, by any means, but in today’s increasingly homogenized culture it is good to be identifiable, even if by a wart.
Morgan L. Walters: Director of the University of Alabama Press.
Much has been said about the “New South” and the “Changing South” over the last eighty years. In my opinion, the South is no longer facing a dilemma; the election of Jimmy Carter as President irrevocably brought the South fully back into the Union, and I think all responsible citizens of the South recognize this… The South is interested in the rest of the United States and the rest of the United States is interested in the South. This, at least, offers some hope for a brighter future for Southern university presses.
Robert T. King: Director of the University of South Carolina Press.
The distance between Baltimore and San Antonio is about equal to the distance between London and Istanbul, so common sense should have told me, when I left New York eleven years ago, that “The South” was too big to be one homogeneous territory or culture. But common sense has never been my strong suit. If it were, I wouldn’t be in this business.
If you could get rid of all the nonsense Southerners have talked about the South and all the nonsense non-Southerners have talked about it, I think you’d be left with only one shared characteristic that distinguishes all the states of the old Confederacy today from the rest of the nation and it is this: like patients undergoing psychoanalysis, they are unusually interested in their own histories. This is a quantifiable characteristic. Compare, for instance, the amount of money the state of South Carolina budgets for the care of its governmental archives with the amount New York state budgets for the same purpose.
Ashbel G. Brice: Director of Duke University Press.
William B. Harvey: Director of the University Press of Florida.
3. Southern Writers and New York Publishers by Caroline Harkleroad
“Caroline Harkleroad is editor of Southern Booklore, a quarterly book review newspaper launched in November 1976. She is also a literary agent and has a freelance book and author promotion agency at 2420 Oldfield Road, N.W., Atlanta, Ga.”
4. Are These The Books That Changed The South?
John Craddock: “A book critic and columnist with the Charleston (S.C.) News Courier and the Charleston Evening Post.”
Nancy Tipton: “Arts editor of the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News and book review editor of the Sunday Clarion-Ledger News. She received the 1977 Mississippi Press Women award for critical reviewing.”
James Ewing: “Editor of the Book and Op/Ed pages of the Nashville (Tenn.) Banner.”
“Rather than publish a conventional review of this book, we have asked three Southern journalists and book people to comment informally on the author's proposition and selection of the following as Books That Changed the South. Robert B. Downs. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1977.”
1. Captain John Smith's The Generall Historie of Virginia, England and the Summer Isles.
2. William Byrd's History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina.
3. Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia.
4. William Bartram's Travels Through North and South Carolina. Georgia, East and West Florida.
5. Mason Locke Weem's The Life of Washington the Great.
6. A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee.
7. Augustus Baldwin Longstreet's Georgia Scenes.
8. Frances Anne Kemble's Journal of a Resident on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839.
9. Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Written by Himself.
10. John Caldwell Calhoun's A Disquisition on Government.
11. Hinton Rowan Helper's The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It.
12. Frederick Law Olmsted's The Cotton Kingdom.
13. Edward King's The Great South.
14. George W. Cable's Old Creole Days.
15. Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.
16. Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi.
17. Thomas Nelson Page's In Ole Virginia.
18. Booker Taliaferro Washington's Up from Slavery.
19. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk.
20. Thomas Dixon's The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan.
21. Ulrich Bonnell Phillips's Life and Labor in the Old South.
22. Twelve Southerners' I’ll Take My Stand.
23. Howard W. Odum's Southern Regions of the United States.
24. W.J. Cash's The Mind of the South.
25. C. Vann Woodward's Origins of the New South. 1877-1913.
5. Watersmeet: Thinking About Southern Poets by Kelly Cherry
“Kelly Cherry, born in Louisiana, grew up in New York and Virginia, and now lives in England. She is the author of a novel, Sick and Full of Burning, published by The Viking Press (in paperback, by Ballantine Books), and of two collections of poetry, Lovers and Agnostics, published by Red Clay Books, and Relativity: A Point of View, published this year by Louisiana State University Press.”
6. The Greatest Rebel of Them All by Richard M. McMurry
“Richard M. McMurry is professor of history at Valdosta State College. He specializes in Southern and Civil War history and is completing a biography of the Confederate general, John Bell Hood.” He reviews The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American Society by Thomas L. Connelly.
7. Appalachia As The Lost America by Henry D. Shapiro
“Henry D. Shapiro is associate professor of history at the University of Cincinnati and the author of Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1970, published by the University of North Carolina Press.” A review of Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life among the Mountaineers by Horace Kephart.
8. Women of the South by Carol George
“Carol George is a professor at Hobart and William Smith College.” A review of The Southern Lady From Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930 by Anne Firor Scott.
9. The Parables of Flannery O'Connor by Carl R. Sherman
“Carl R. Sherman is a contributing editor at Book Forum. He lives in Northampton, Mass., where he is working on a book.” He reviews The Pruning Word: The Parables of Flannery O'Connor by John R. May.
10. Come A Spiritual Healer: A Profile of William Goyen by Erika Duncan
“Erika Duncan is the author of a novel, A Wreath of Pale White Roses, published by Magic Circle Press, and is a contributing editor at Book Forum.”
11. Letters of A Private Man by George Wolfe
“George H. Wolfe is assistant professor of English at the University of Alabama and the author of Faulkner: Fifty Years After the Marble Faun, published by the University of Alabama Press.” A review of Selected Letters of William Faulkner edited by Joseph Blotner.
12. Faulkner's Cosmos by Joanne V. Creighton
“Joanne V. Creighton is associate professor of English at Wayne State University and the author of William Faulkner's Craft of Revision, published by Wayne State University Press. Currently she is completing a book on Joyce Carol Oates.” She reviews Religious Perspectives in Faulkner’s Fiction: Yoknapatawpha and Beyond edited by J. Robert Barth.
13. The Second Reconstruction by Joseph H. Cartwright
“Joseph H. Cartwright is Associate Professor of History at Murray State University, is the author of The Triumph of Jim Crow: Tennessee Race Relations in the 1880s, recently published by the University of Tennessee Press. He is currently writing a book about reconstruction during and after the Civil War.” A review of Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969 by Stephen F. Lawson.
14. More Books About The South
1. The Continuity of Southern Distinctiveness. Carl N. Degler. Louisiana State University Press.
2. The Southern Mystique: Technology and Human Values in a Changing Region. W. David Lewis and E. Eugene Griessman. Eds. University of Alabama Press.
3. The Rising South. Volume I. Changes and Issues. Donard R. Noble and Joab L. Thomas, Eds. University of Alabama Press.
4. The Rising South. Volume II. Southern Universities and the South. Robert H. McKenzie, Ed. University of Alabama Press.
5. Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585-1763. Richard Beale Davis. University of Tennessee Press. To be published late in 1977. Three volumes, illustrated, slipcased. (Free pdf from UTP)
6. The Southeastern Indians. Charles Hudson. University of Tennessee Press. (pdf)
7. Brass Bands and New Orleans Jazz. William J. Schafer. Louisiana State University Press.
8. The Great Houses of New Orleans. Curt Bruce. Alfred A. Knopf.
9. Dead Towns of Alabama. W. Stuart Harris. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press.
10. Kentucky Folk Architecture. William Lynwood Montell and Michael L. Morse. University Press of Kentucky.
11. Great Smoky Mountains Wildflowers. Carlos C. Campbell, William F. Huston and Aaron J. Sharp. University of Tennessee Press.
12. Kentucky's Age of Wood. Kenneth Clarke and Ira Kohn. University Press of Kentucky.
13. Coffin Hollow and Other Ghost Tales. Ruth Ann Musick. University Press of Kentucky.
14. Old Burnside. Harriet Simpson Arnow. University Press of Kentucky
15. Gentleman in a Dustcoat: A Biography of John Crowe Ransom. Thomas Daniel Young. Louisiana State University Press.
16. From Tobacco Road to Route 66: The Southern Poor White in Fiction. Sylvia Jenkins Cook. University of North Carolina Press.
17. A Glossary of Faulkner's South. Calvin S. Brown. Yale University Press.
18. Sherman and the Burning of Columbia. Marion Brunson Lucas. Foreword by Bell I. Wiley. Texas A&M University Press.
19. The Literature of Memory: Modern Writers of the American South. Richard Gray. Johns Hopkins University Press.
20. One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation. Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch. Cambridge University Press.
21. Black over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina During Reconstruction. Thomas Holt. University of Illinois Press.
22. Witness in Philadelphia: A Mississippi WASP's Account of Civil Rights Murders. Florence Mars. Louisiana State University Press.
23. The Triumph of Jim Crow: Tennessee Race Relations in the 1880s. Joseph H. Cartwright. University of Tennessee Press.
24. Alabama Bound: 45 Years Inside a Prison System. Ray A. March, Ed. University of Alabama Press.
25. The Schools That Fear Built: Segregationist Academies in the South. David Nevin and Robert E. Bills. Intro. by Terry Sanford. Acropolis Books.
Re: UNC press, I think Davidson wrote that their proclivities were why Attack on Leviathan was never widely promoted and the first edition ended up being pulped.