Culture in the South
Although the Press's original charter did not mention developing a state or regional program, regionalism soon emerged as a special publishing interest. William Terry Couch (1932-45), the first director to actively develop books about the South, wrote "any people that leaves its thinking . . . to minds elsewhere is doomed to subservience." In 1927 the Press began publishing a steady stream of studies on education, land use, tenant farming, mill villages, child labor, textile unions, chain gangs, voting practices, lynching, and race relations, all with the intent of helping Southerners understand and improve their society. The Press's regional focus has since led to many subsequent areas of specialization, including North Carolina, the Civil War, Southern flora and fauna, African American Studies, regional literature, and large format books devoted to southern art and architecture.
Oral HistoriesThe method that Couch helped pioneer reached its full fruition and achieved scholarly credibility fifty years later. Like A Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (1987) by Jacqueline Hall and others is a sophisticated oral history inspired by the University of North Carolina's tradition of documentary realism, dating back to the 1930s, and by newer trends in social history. Because the authors focus on how the people they interviewed interpreted their own lives, Like A Family challenges the stereotype of workers robbed of dignity and motivation by paternalistic mill owners. The study appeals to non-specialists while also filling a scholarly gap in the study of southern mill workers between the 1890s and the mid-1930s. Sponsored by the Southern Oral History Project at UNC, Like A Family won six awards in the fields of American history, American studies, and labor history.
Sociology and the Institute for Research in Social
Science
The Institute for Research in Social Science sponsored many of the
Press's early publications. Two of the best known are Howard Odum's
Southern Regions of the United States (1936), a monumental, though
somewhat abstract and arcane study written at the height of his power and
influence, and Rupert Vance's Human Geography of the South (1932),
one of the most influential books ever published on the South. Their
purpose, shared by many Institute studies, was two-fold: to foster the
South's distinctive regional identity while reintegrating the South into
the developmental progress of the nation as a whole.
While Odum avoided attributing causes or suggesting methods of dealing with the South's social problems, Vance did both. In his Human Geography of the South, he viewed the South as a test of human adequacy to master the resources of its region and to develop a distinctive and competent culture. Tracing the region's geographical development from frontier, to plantation, to tenancy, and incipient industrialism, Vance substantiated the view that the South had failed to realize its economic and cultural potential, remaining a colonial economy in the midst of modern technology. Vance's call for a new reconstruction of the South based on regional planning helped shape the New Deal's southern initiative.
Southern Agriculture
The Press also published historical and sociological studies on
cotton and tobacco culture as well as more practical guides intended for
students and farmers. Widely used as a textbook on rural agronomy,
Benjamin F. Bullock's Practical Farming for the South (1944) is
simply written, abundantly illustrated, and provides home farmers with the
fundamentals of agriculture.
Nannie May Tilley's The Bright Tobacco Industry, 1860-1929 (1948) is the most comprehensive study of bright tobacco ever written. More than a business history, it covers the manufacture, cultivation, and marketing of bright tobacco from the period of the Civil War to the Great Depression, paying particular attention to the industry's effect on the lives of farmers in the South.
Popular Culture
In addition to serious scholarly studies, the Press publishes
books that contribute to an understanding of the region but are intended
for a broad, popular audience. Bill Neal's Southern Cooking, first
published in 1985, is more a reflection of one person's approach to
southern cooking than the earlier compendium, Marion's Brown Southern
Cookbook (1951, still in print). Neal had a knack for putting recipes
in their cultural context, spicing them up with historical tidbits,
anecdotal tales, and personal reminiscences.
A product of the Mississippi Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Charles Reagan Wilson's and William Ferris's Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989) takes a serious look at popular southern culture. The best work of its kind on the South or any region of the country, it contains over 1600 pages and 1260 entries on everything from "grits" to "rednecks" to "Erskine Caldwell." Its scope, its expansive view of culture, and its commitment to incorporating minorities earned it five awards, ranging from the 1990 Dartmouth Medal from the American Library Association, to the 1990 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature.
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