Focusing on the cultural conflicts between social reformers and southern
communities, William Link presents an important reinterpretation of the
origins and impact of progressivism in the South. He shows that a
fundamental clash of values divided reformers and rural southerners,
ultimately blocking the reforms. His book, based on extensive archival
research, adds a new dimension to the study of American reform
movements. The new group of social reformers that emerged near the end
of the nineteenth century believed that the South, an underdeveloped and
politically fragile region, was in the midst of a social crisis. They
recognized the environmental causes of social problems and pushed for
interventionist solutions. As a consensus grew about southern social
problems in the early 1900s, reformers adopted new methods to win the
support of reluctant or indifferent southerners. By the beginning of
World War I, their public crusades on prohibition, health, schools,
woman suffrage, and child labor had led to some new social policies and
the beginnings of a bureaucratic structure. By the late 1920s, however
social reform and southern progressivism remained largely frustrated.
Link's analysis of the response of rural southern communities to reform
efforts establishes a new social context for southern progressivism. He
argues that the movement failed because a cultural chasm divided the
reformers and the communities they sought to transform. Reformers were
paternalistic. They believed that the new policies should properly be
administered from above, and they were not hesitant to impose their own
solutions. They also viewed different cultures and races as inferior.
Rural southerners saw theircommunities and customs quite differently.
For most, local control and personal liberty were watchwords. They had
long deflected attempts of southern outsiders to control their affairs,
and they opposed the paternalistic reforms of the Progressive Era with
equal determination. Throug
