Natalie J. Ring - The Problem South: Region, Empire and the New Liberal State, 1880-1930 (Politics and Culture in the Twentieth Century South)

SERIES EDITORS

Bryant Simon, Temple University

Jane Dailey, University of Chicago

ADVISORY BOARD

Lisa Dorr, University of Alabama

Grace Elizabeth Hale, University of Virginia

Randal Jelks, University of Kansas

Kevin Kruse, Princeton University

Robert Norrell, University of Tennessee

Bruce Schulman, Boston University

Marjorie Spruill, University of South Carolina

J. Mills Thornton, University of Michigan

Allen Tullos, Emory University

Brian Ward, University of Manchester

NATALIE J. RING

A portion of this book appeared, in different form, as Mapping Regional and Imperial Geographies: Tropical Disease in the U.S. South, on pages 297308 of Alfred W. McCoys Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State, 2009 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin. Reprinted courtesy of The University of Wisconsin Press. Other portions of this book originally appeared, in different form, as Inventing the Tropical South: Race, Region, and the Colonial Model, Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures 56 (Fall 2003): 61932, and as Linking Regional and Global Spaces in Pursuit of Southern Distinctiveness, American Literature 78 (December 2006): 71214.

2012 by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

All rights reserved Designed

by Walton Harris

Set in 10.5 / 14 Minion Pro

Printed digitally in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ring, Natalie J.

The problem South : region, empire, and the new liberal state, 18801930 / Natalie J. Ring.

p. cm.(Politics and culture in the twentieth-century South)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-2903-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8203-2903-7 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-4260-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8203-4260-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. LiberalismSouthern StatesHistory. 2. Southern StatesPolitics and government18651950. 3. Southern StatesSocial conditions18651945. 4. Southern StatesEconomic conditions. 5. Southern StatesEconomic policy.

I. Title.

F215.R56 2012

320.510975dc23 2011047929

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

There are many people, institutions, and associations who made this book possible. The process of researching and writing has taken longer than expected and my memory is weaker; thus I offer a preemptive apology to those I have neglected to acknowledge.

The genesis of this book was the product of a conversation with David G. Gutirrez, William Deverell, and Douglas Flamming in Los Angeles over lunch. They peppered me with question after question, enabling me to identify a dissertation topic. After many initial dead ends, this meeting turned out to be a pivotal moment. Dave Gutirrez continued to offer encouragement through doubtful times despite the fact that the subject matter of this book was far outside his field of study. In retrospect, I am very lucky that I landed in southern California to study southern history. The rigorous training I received from Steven Hahn, Rachel N. Klein, and Stephanie McCurry at the University of California, San Diego (ucsd) continues to be priceless. Steven Hahn never lost faith in the significance of this project, from the very beginning as an initial proposal to completion as a book. I cannot thank him enough for his wise advice and unending support. As a dissertation advisor, mentor, and historian he has inspired me. Rachel Kleins unflagging kindness and advocacy during graduate school was inestimable. I am grateful to Stephanie McCurry for encouraging me to stick to my guns at the tail end of this process. The history department at ucsd is a jewel. I also learned much from Michael Bernstein, Stanley Chodorow, Michael Meranze, and Michael Parrish. Other faculty at the university, Susan G. Davis and Jonathan Scott Holloway, taught me a lot as well. Special thanks go to Vincente L. Rafael for serving on my dissertation committee with enthusiasm at the last moment. The cohort of graduate students and friends in San Diego made the process more than bearable: Eric Boime, Krista Camenzind, Julie Davidow, Rene Hayden, Linda Heidenreich, Katrina Hoch, Volker Janssen, Christina Jimnez, David Miller, Katrina Pearson, Dmian Pritchard, Leah Schmerl, Sarah Schrank, Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Rita Urquijo-Ruiz, Adam Warren, and H. Mark Wild. Without Linda, Dmian, and Gabriela I never would have made it out of graduate school. Daniel Berenberg, Wendy Maxon, Douglas T. McGetchin, and Angela Vergara provided constructive feedback in the dissertation writing class.

In the early stages, my research was funded by the Smithsonian Institution, the American Historical Association, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Copeland Fellow program at Amherst College. I learned much from other fellows at the Smithsonian and always enjoyed talking southern history with Pete Daniel. Thank you to David W. Wills and David W. Blight for sponsoring me as a Copeland fellow. I am grateful to the archivists across the United States who have assisted me over the years. I would especially like to thank Thomas Rosenbaum of the Rockefeller Center Archive for his indefatigable commitment to locating new sources while I worked in the archives and Vincent Fitzpatrick, curator of the H. L. Mencken Collection, who made my first official visit to an archive and my lone work in the Mencken room a welcome one. Although the project took a slightly different direction, his assistance proved to be extremely useful. At the beginning of this project when I was traveling in Chapel Hill, Fred C. Hobson graciously met me for dinner and listened to me share my thoughts on H. L. Mencken and the critics of the 1920s, even though I was a complete stranger to him. Samuel L. Webb also provided early support and dinner at his home, and I appreciate his best effort to gain me access to the Thomas Heflin Papers at the University of Alabama. Although I did not get to view the Heflin papers, I did discover some invaluable sources in the W. S. Hoole Special Collections that I would not have seen otherwise.

The two years I spent at Tulane University as a visiting assistant professor marked an important moment in my professional development. The opportunity to be a part of the intellectual community at Tulane and live in New Orleans while studying the South was not only serendipitous but inestimable. I was fortunate to have such welcoming colleagues and friends: Laura Rosanne Adderley, George L. Bernstein, James M. Boyden, Rachel Devlin, Kate Haulman, Daniel Hurewitz, Alisa Plant, Lawrence N. Powell, Randy J. Sparks, Edith Wolfe, Justin Wolfe, and Jacqueline Woodfork. Rosanne Adderley not only introduced me to all that is great about New Orleans culture but she passed on the good will, assistance, and karma of previous dissertators working until the very last minute. Her friendship is a treasure.