When Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in as president, the South was
unmistakably the most disadvantaged part of the nation. The region's
economy was the weakest, its educational level the lowest, and its laws
and social mores the most racially slanted. Moreover, the region was
prostrate from the effects of the Great Depression. Roosevelt's New Deal
effected significant changes on the southern landscape, challenging many
traditions and laying the foundations for subsequent alterations in the
southern way of life. At the same time, firmly entrenched values and
institutions militated against change and blunted the impact of federal
programs. In The South and the New Deal, Roger Biles examines the New
Deal's impact on the rural and urban South, its black and white
citizens, its poor, and its politics. He shows how southern leaders
initially welcomed and supported the various New Deal measures but later
opposed a continuation or expansion of these programs because they
violated regional convictions and traditions. Nevertheless, Biles
concludes, the New Deal, coupled with the domestic effects of World War
II, set the stage for a remarkable postwar transformation in the affairs
of the region. The post-World War II Sunbelt boom has brought Dixie more
fully into the national mainstream. To what degree did the New Deal
disrupt southern distinctiveness? Biles answers this and other questions
and explores the New Deal's enduring legacy in the region.
