Marrs, Aaron Wagner (Author)
University of South Carolina
Smith, Mark M.
Edition Details: Advisor: Smith, Mark M.
Physical Details: 407 pp.
Language: English
This dissertation examines the significance of railroads in the southern United States from their beginnings in the 1830s to the start of the Civil War. Most studies of pre-Civil War railroads have focused on business or economic history. In contrast, this work situates southern railroads in a much broader context that incorporates elements of technological, social, business, environmental, and labor history. Positioning railroads in this way makes them an ideal prism through which to view how antebellum southerners married conservative social ideals with forward-looking technological advancement. Although the Old South has often been considered 'premodern' because of its reliance on slave labor and agriculture, the very success of cotton production drove planters and businessmen to push for the development of railroads, the most modern form of transportation available. The Old South was neither fully premodern or modern, but represented the fusion of both in its efforts to preserve slavery and pursue development. Four principal themes inform this investigation: the thorough integration of slavery into southern railroads, the parallelism of northern and southern railroad construction, the multifaceted reaction of southerners to railroads, and the critical importance of time to understanding railroad operations. Slaves were integral to every single aspect of railroad operation in the South, and slaves threw southern norms over race into relief when they rode the railroads. The parallelism of northern and southern construction highlights the progress-oriented nature of southern development. The third theme underlines the variegated response to railroad development in the South (religious leaders saw them as violators of the sabbath, planters saw them as a boon to business and land values). Finally, an examination of the railroad's time provides an avenue to understand the railroads's community relationships (with groups such as sabbatarians) and questions the railroad's typical role as an exemplar of scheduling and punctuality. In sum, railroads to demonstrate that the Old South cannot be understood as wholly premodern or modern. Rather, the Old South interwove aspects of both conservatism and modernity into its social fabric.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 67/07 (2007): 2723. UMI pub. no. 3224457.
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