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New South

A consequence of the Civil War was an intensification of the sectionalism already felt in the region. The South is the only part of the United States to have suffered occupation by a conquering army, and it has taken more than a century and a great deal of economic growth to temper the bitterness that followed.

The Civil War and reconstruction were also instrumental in unifying Southern whites. The "Solid South" was a term that indicated that the entire region voted as a bloc and often in direct contradiction to otherwise national trends. The war and reconstruction were associated with the North and the Republican party, so southern whites became stubborn opposition Democrats. When southern whites could no longer tolerate the ideological connection with the Democratic party, the explicit sectional label "southern Democrats" became common. Today, national political changes and southern cultural changes have made the South no longer solidly Democratic. The full range of the political spectrum is represented among southern elected officials, although the majority tend to continue some of the traditional orientations.

What's Your Southern Sign? Some of us Southerners are pretty skeptical of horoscopes and the people that read them. If we are to ever fully understand all the star signs and the people they represent, we need symbols that all true Southerners understand. Moon Pie (March 21 - April 19) Aries You're the type that spends a lot of time on the front porch. It's a cinch to recognize the physical appearance of Moon Pies. Big and round are the key words here. You should marry anybody who you can get remotely interested in the idea. It's not going to be easy. This might be the year to think about aerobics. Maybe not. Possum (April 20 - May 20) Taurus When confronted with life's difficulties, possums have a marked tendency to withdraw and develop a don't-bother-me-about-it attitude. Sometimes you become so withdrawn, people actually think you're dead. This strategy is probably not psychologically healthy but seems to work for you. One day, however, it won't work, and you may find your problems actually running you over. Crawfish (May 21 - June 21) Gemini Crawfish is a water sign. If you work in an office, you're always hanging around the water cooler. Crawfish prefer the beach to the mountains, the pool to the golf course, and the bathtub to the living room. You tend not to be particularly attractive physically, but you have very, very good heads. Collards (June 22 - July 22) Cancer Collards have a genius for communication. They love to get in the "melting pot" of life and share their essence with the essence of those around them. Collards make good social workers, psychologists, and baseball managers. As far as your personal life goes, if you are Collards, stay away from Moon Pies. It just won't work. Save yourself a lot of heartache. Catfish (July 23 - Aug 22) Leo Catfish are traditionalists in matters of the heart, although one's whiskers may cause problems for loved ones. You Catfish are never easy people to understand. You prefer the muddy bottoms to the clear surface of life. Above all else, Catfish should stay away from Moon Pies. Grits (Aug 23 - Sept 22) Virgo Your highest aim is to be with others like yourself. You like to huddle together with a big crowd of other Grits. You love to travel though, so maybe you should think about joining a club. Where do you like to go? Anywhere they have cheese, gravy, bacon, butter, or eggs. If you can go somewhere where they have all these things, that serves you well. Boiled Peanuts (Sept 23 - Oct 22) Libra You have a passionate desire to help your fellow man. Unfortunately, those who know you best, your friends and loved ones, may find that your personality is much too salty, and their criticism will probably affect you deeply because you are really much softer than you appear. You should go right ahead and marry anybody you want to because in a certain way, yours is a charmed life. On the road of life, you can be sure that people will always pull over and stop for you. Butter Bean (Oct 23 - Nov 21) Scorpio Always invite a Butter Bean to a party because Butter Beans get along well with everybody. You, as a Butter Bean, should be proud. You've grown on the vine of life, and you feel at home no matter what the setting. You can sit next to anybody. However, you, too, shouldn't have anything to do with Moon Pies. Armadillo (Nov 22 - Dec 21) Sagittarius You have a tendency to develop a tough exterior, but you are actually quite gentle. A good evening for you? Old friends, a fire, some roots, fruit, worms, and insects. You are a throwback. You're not concerned with today's fashions and trends. You're not concerned with anything about today. You're almost prehistoric in your interests and behavior patterns. You probably want to marry another Armadillo, but Possum is another, somewhat kinky mating possibility. Okra (Dec 22 - Jan 19) Capricorn Although you appear crude, you are actually very slick on the inside. Okras have tremendous influence. An older Okra can look back over his life and see the seeds of his influence everywhere. Stay away from Moon Pies. Chitlin (Jan 20 - Feb 18) Aquarius Chitlins come from humble backgrounds. A Chitlin, however, can make something of himself if he's motivated and has lots of seasoning. In dealing with Chitlins, be careful. They can erupt like Vesuvius. Chitlins are best with Catfish and Okra. Boll Weevil (Feb 19 - March 20) Pisces You have an overwhelming curiosity. You're unsatisfied with the surface of things, and you feel the need to bore deep into the interior of everything. Needless to say, you are very intense and driven as if you had some inner hunger. Nobody in their right mind is going to marry you, so don't worry about it.

The spatial and regional characteristics of the New South have been built on patterns that evolved over decades and, in some ways, over centuries. The key to recent changes lies in the gradual loss of regional isolation. Prior to the mid-20th century, most of the South's population, and certainly its leadership, appeared to react to events as though the South was a separate country, reluctantly required to continue dealing with a northern neighbor. Since the later 1930s, however, and especially since the later 1940s, trends and pressures external to the South began to infiltrate the region and break down its isolation.

The economy of the South in the 1930s was little different from that of 1870: dominantly agrarian, producing raw agricultural products primarily for export, capital deficient, supported by heavy use of animal power and hand labor, and operated through sharecropping and tenant-farming arrangements and a regionally distinctive crop-lien system. What industry existed was largely low-wage or oriented toward narrow local markets. The region's urban structure continued to reflect this orientation, with small market centers, railroad towns, textile mill towns, and county seats representing the pervasive urban form in the South.

Over the next half century, tremendous changes occurred. By the early 1950s, over half of the region's labor force was engaged in urban-based, nonagricultural employment; the proportion in agriculture has continued to decline. This paralleled a sharp increase in manufacturing employment and employment in service activities. Further, the industrial mix in the South has shown a strong trend toward diversification; no longer is southern manufacturing limited to the early stages of raw materials processing.

Within agriculture, diversification also occurred. Cotton remains the most important cash crop to the region; other crops include tobacco, sugarcane, peanuts, and rice. But the area producing cotton is only a shadow of its former size. This shrinkage was supported by the decay of old cotton-ginning institutions in sections of the former production area.

While cotton dominance declined, livestock industries and other crops, such as soybeans, increased sharply. Beef production improved greatly as farmers improved pastures with better grasses and fodder crops and with higher fertilizer applications. At the same time, new cattle strains were developed to survive and thrive in the hot, humid southern summer. Within the last 30 years, national broiler and chicken production has become industrialized and concentrated in the South.

Even more dramatic has been the transformation in the means of farm production. Wherever possible, machinery has been applied to the production process, and regional agriculture is now much more efficient than before. The traditional sharecrop system has almost disappeared since the mid-1930s, and there has been a sharp increase in the average farm size in the South.

Rural-to-urban migration within the South increased rapidly as the region's economy participated in the post-Depression expansion of the late 1930s. In 1940, there were only 35 cities with populations greater than 50,000 in the South. By 1950, the number had increased to 42, and by 1980 it had reached 75. Many other small southern places have developed a certain vitality from the larger growth centers.

The pull to the cities was stimulated by industrial growth and a diversification that promised to match that of southern agriculture and to produce a varied industrial mix. The proportion of the nonagricultural labor force in manufacturing jobs increased greatly, and in virtually every part of the region. The traditional industries--such as steel, tobacco products, and textiles--remained regionally important for a period but less dominant as other kinds of manufacturing activity appeared. Synthetic textiles and apparel industries, the former in the Carolinas and the latter primarily in northern Georgia, widened activities even within this broad industrial category. Chemical industries expanded rapidly along the Gulf Coast. Furniture production in the central Carolina Piedmont increased, and other wood-processing plants became more prominent throughout the eastern and Gulf coastal plains. Shipbuilding was continued at Norfolk, Virginia, and begun at several sites on the Gulf Coast; aircraft production at Marietta, Georgia, drew skilled labor and higher wages to the Atlanta area.

Most significantly, as the average southern consumer earned higher wages, the regional market increased enough to draw many consumer goods manufacturers into the South. This increased the demand for nonagricultural labor, spreading the income further and strengthening the local market.

The South's rapid industrial growth is a consequence of a growing regional market, gradually demanding and able to pay for more goods and services. But the question remains: Why did the market expand? One observer has proposed that the federal government's Agricultural Adjustment Acts (1935 and later) provided the main stimulus to the market growth.

Before the acts took effect, the prices that farm products could demand were set to a great extent by supply and demand in the international marketplace. To the South, this meant that prices for southern cotton, for example, fluctuated partly according to the production success or failure in other cotton-growing areas of the world. More important, farm labor in the cotton South was in competition with cotton producers in what was still largely a colonialized world economy. When agricultural wages and prices were adjusted upward under the Agricultural Adjustment Acts to reflect national industrial wage differentials, the sharply improved market in the South for manufactured goods initiated the upward development spiral still affecting the region.

In an act of federal intervention much more widely recognized as significant to the South's social structure, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 struck down the segregationist "separate but equal" doctrine permitted almost 70 years before. Changes in the South's social geography were initiated by this decision, changes that reverberated in every other part of the country where race affected opportunity, and the repercussions are far from settled today.

A thread common to many of the South's changes since the mid-1930s is the gradual decline of its regional distinctiveness. Economic diversity is replacing simple dependency on agriculture. There are indications that the region's supply of low-wage labor is almost exhausted; new industry and service activities will have to compete more actively and may continue to force wages upward slowly. A significant infusion of northern migrants, especially to regional metropolitan growth centers, has made some of these cities less distinctively southern in culture and more clearly just urban.

Thomas Lynn. Belles of the South. USADEEPSOUTH!.

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