Southern Historical Society

(noun)

A public organization founded by Confederate Major General Dabney H. Maury in 1868–1869 that documented Southern military and civilian viewpoints from the American Civil War until now. These were compiled into the Southern Historical Society Papers, published in the late nineteenth century, comprising 52 volumes of articles written by Southern soldiers, officers, politicians, and civilians.

Related Terms

Examples of Southern Historical Society in the following topics:

  • Sectionalism and the New South

    • The "Lost Cause" beliefs were founded upon several historically inaccurate elements.
    • Most scholars who have studied the white South's memories of the Civil War or the Old South conclude that both portrayals present a past society in which whites were in charge and blacks were faithful and subservient.
    • Early in the 1870s for the Southern Historical Society that firmly established the "Lost Cause" as a long-lasting literary and cultural phenomenon.
    • Today, education is a high priority of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which collects documents and gives aid to historical researchers and top college scholars.
    • Hillyer argues that the Confederate Memorial Literary Society (CMLS), founded by elite white women in Richmond, Virginia, in the 1890s, exemplifies this solution.

  • Middle Class

    • In the book he used statistical data to analyze the make-up of southern society, contending that yeoman farmers made up a larger middle class than was generally thought.
    • They gathered data on all Southerners.
    • Plain Folk argued that southern society was not dominated by planter aristocrats, but that yeoman farmers played a significant role.
    • The religion, language, and culture of these common people created a democratic "plain folk" society.
    • Owsley believed that shared economic interests united southern farmers.

  • The Southern Renaissance

    • The Southern Renaissance was a movement that reinvigorated American Southern literature in the 1920s and 1930s.
    • In response to the attacks of Mencken and his imitators, Southern writers were provoked to a reassertion of Southern uniqueness and a deeper exploration of the theme of Southern identity.
    • Southern opposition to industrialization was expressed in the famous essay collection.
    • I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (1930), written by authors and critics from the Southern Renaissance who came to be known as Southern Agrarians.
    • Previously, Southern writers tended to focus on historical romances about the "Lost Cause" of the Confederate States of America, commonly known as the Confederacy.

  • Lincoln's Plan and Congress's Response

    • A Republican coalition came to power in nearly all of the Southern states and set out to transform the society by setting up a free-labor economy, with support from the army and the Freedmen's Bureau.
    • All Southerners, except for high-ranking Confederate Army officers and government officials, would be granted a full pardon.
    • Lincoln guaranteed Southerners that he would protect their private property, though not their slaves.
    • Radical Republicans hoped to control the Reconstruction process, transform Southern society, disband the planter aristocracy, redistribute land, develop industry, and guarantee civil liberties for former slaves.
    • One historical camp argues that Lincoln's flexibility, pragmatism, and superior political skills with Congress would have solved Reconstruction with far less difficulty.

  • Lee's Surrender at Appomattox

    • Ironically, the greatest change to come as a result of the American Civil War that followed Southern secession was the end of slavery.
    • The outcome of the Civil War had great implications not only for Southern society, but also for the Southern economy.
    • The collapse of the plantation economy after the abolition of slavery and increase in world production of cotton as well as the increasing influence of Northern Republicans in Southern affairs led to greater industrialization, the rise of larger city centers, and the development of infrastructure such as railroads, banks, and factories.
    • A panoramic image of the parlor of the reconstructed McLean House in Appomattox Court House National Historical Park as seen in August 2011

  • White Society in the South

    • Antebellum society in the South consisted of a class of wealthy plantation-owners, a middle class of yeomans, poor whites, and slaves.
    • In his study of Edgefield County, South Carolina, Orville Vernon Burton classified white society into the poor, the yeoman middle class, and the elite.
    • The largest slaveholders, generally owners of large plantations, represented the top stratum of Southern society.
    • The principle of white supremacy, accepted by almost all white southerners of all classes, made slavery seem legitimate, natural, and essential for a civilized society.
    • Southern tradesmen often depended on the richest planters for steady work.

  • Settling the Southern Colonies

    • The Southern Colonies, including Maryland, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia were established during the 16th and 17th centuries.
    • The Southern Colonies in North America were established by the British during the 16th and 17th centuries.
    • At the time, they consisted of South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia; their historical names were the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, the Province of Carolina, and the Province of Georgia.
    • The next major development in the history of the Southern Colonies was the Province of Carolina, originally chartered in 1629.
    • Summarize the major events in the development of the Southern Colonies

  • Plain Folk of the Old South

    • Phillips considered common Southerners as minor players in Southern antebellum social, economic, and political life.
    • Plain Folk argued that yeoman farmers played a significant role in Southern society during this era rather than being sidelined by a dominant aristocratic planter class.
    • The religion, language, and culture of these common people comprised a democratic "Plain Folk" society.
    • In his study of Edgefield County, South Carolina, Orville Vernon Burton classifies white society into the poor, the yeoman middle class, and the elite.
    • Though Southern society was dominated by a planter elite, "Plain Folk" supported secession to defend their families, homes, notions of liberty, and beliefs in racial hierarchies.

  • Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

    • "Carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" are pejorative terms that were used by Southerners during the Reconstruction period.
    • The term "carpetbagger" was used in a derogatory fashion, and communicated the fear, among Southerners, that opportunistic outsiders were conspiring to exploit Southern resources.
    • Southern states had no public school systems, and white Southerners either sent their children to private schools or employed private tutors.
    • Typically, it was used by conservative, pro-federation Southerners to derogate individuals whom they viewed as betraying Southern values by supporting Northern policies such as desegregation.
    • In historical studies, the term is commonly used as a neutral descriptor for Southern white Republicans, but some historians have discontinued this habit because of the term's pejorative origin.

  • The Proslavery Argument

    • Proponents of slavery argued that it protected slaves, masters, and society as a whole.
    • These proslavery theorists championed a class-sensitive view of American antebellum society.
    • They felt that the bane of many past societies was the existence of a class of landless poor.
    • Southern proslavery theorists felt that this class of landless poor was inherently transient and easily manipulated, and as such, often destabilized society as a whole.
    • Only the slaveholding Southern United States, Brazil, and Cuba were seen as making "favorable progress."