Copyright by Angela Christine Maxwell 2008
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Copyright by Angela Christine Maxwell 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Angela Christine Maxwell certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: A HERITAGE OF INFERIORITY: PUBLIC CRITICISM AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH Committee: ________________________________ Steven Hoelscher, Supervisor ________________________________ Robert Abzug ________________________________ Julia Mickenberg ________________________________ David Oshinsky ________________________________ Charles Reagan Wilson A HERITAGE OF INFERIORITY: PUBLIC CRITICISM AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH by Angela Christine Maxwell, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2008 Dedication: for Sidney Burris, who set me on this path and always walked beside me In Memoriam : Elspeth Davies Rostow constant critic and cherished teacher Acknowledgements My list of debts both large and small is as long as one would expect. It does indeed take a village to raise a Ph. D. First and foremost, I would still be wandering the halls of Garrison aimlessly without the direction of my supervisor, Steve Hoelscher. His patience, encouragement and friendship are cherished commodities in an often lonely process. I am grateful as well to Julia Mickenberg for pushing me to think big and write boldly, to Bob Abzug for helping me to connect the dots, to David Oshinsky for advancing my narrative voice, to Charles Reagan Wilson for lending his expertise and his kindness, and to the late Elspeth Rostow for always being the devil’s advocate. My committee showed unexpected faith in my project, and though they cautioned me wisely, they never made me compromise my ideas. In addition to my committee, I survived due to the generous advice and astute counsel of Willard Gatewood, Larry Malley, Jim Cobb, Bob Brinkmeyer, Elizabeth Engelhardt, Joel Dinerstein, and Cynthia Frese. On a practical note, I benefited greatly from the financial support of the Harry S. Truman Foundation, the P. E. O. Women in Education Foundation, and the Homer Lindsey Bruce Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Texas, Austin. The American Studies department, as well, provided me with the invaluable gifts of courses to take and courses to teach. On a personal note, I sincerely believe that it is impossible to reach this level of education without it being instilled in one’s permanent value system. I am thankful to my family for championing education and for never asking, “When will you be finished?” In Austin, I am indebted most deeply to Jessie Swigger for her cheerful smile, v unassuming intelligence, fierce loyalty, and limitless empathy. She proves that misery and happiness love company, and that both are best discussed over a cup of coffee and a breakfast taco. At home, my greatest I. O. U. is to my husband, Sidney Burris, who saw all of this for me before I even knew in which direction to look. My dedication to him extends far beyond these pages. vi A HERITAGE OF INFERIORITY: PUBLIC CRITICISM AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH Publication No. ___________ Angela Christine Maxwell, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisor: Steven Hoelscher Journalist W. J. Cash’s “Savage Ideal,” historian Sheldon Hackney’s “siege- mentality,” literary critic Fred Hobson’s “rage to explain,” and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Drum Major Instinct,” all describe the same regional disorder: a deep and enduring Inferiority Complex that underlies the culture of the American South. The continual construction of southern white identity, particularly the maintenance of white cultural supremacy and conservative political domination, required strict allegiance to self- promotional narratives of superiority. Such propaganda sensitized many white southerners to public criticism of their home region, criticism that became a staple of media rhetoric in the modern era and that unleashed a regional defensiveness capable of transforming moderate communities into reactionary forces. Applying psychologist Alfred Adler’s original theory of the Inferiority Complex to specific groups of white southerners exposes this cultural dynamic. The first case study examines the impact of the 1925 Scopes Trial on the home community of Dayton, Tennessee, a moderately religious, southern town that was converted seemingly overnight to a fundamentalist haven, exemplified by William Jennings Bryan College which continues to promote vii creationism. The second study exposes the double transformation of southern writers, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, and Donald Davidson. Originally known as the Fugitives, they were rejected by northern intellectuals; such criticism catalyzed their metamorphosis first, from escapist poets to defenders of Agrarianism, and second, to creators of a new school of literary criticism, the New Criticism, that sought to strip literature of its historical context and regional distinctiveness. The final case deconstructs the Virginia campaign for Massive Resistance and Interposition organized in response to Brown v. Board of Education . Virginia’s Gray Commission was expected to offer a reasonable plan for school desegregation that would serve as a model throughout the South. However, the news coverage of Civil Rights violations fueled white southern resistance, resulting in an extreme rebellion against moderation and the closing of public schools. In conclusion, the southern heritage of inferiority snowballed and intensified throughout the twentieth century, altering the literary, political, and religious landscape and remains relative to contemporary debates regarding evolution, the academic canon, and race relations in America. viii Table of Contents Chapter 1: The Real Burden of Southern History…………………………………….1 Chapter 2: The Anatomy of Inferiority………………………………………………27 Part I: The Long Shadow of Scopes …………………………………………………….54 Chapter 3: The Triptych of the Twenties: Bryan, Darrow, and Mencken and What They Meant to the South……………………………………...58 Chapter 4 ‘Tennessee vs. Civilization’: Scopes takes on a Southern Accent……….96 Chapter 5 Reactionary Fundamentalism: The Founding of William Jennings Bryan College…………………………………………………………..132 Part II: The Writer as Southerner……………………………………………………….159 Chapter 6: Fugitives Captured: The Wasteland of Southern Identity………………163 Chapter 7: A Knock at Midnight: The Agrarian Plea for the South………………..196 Chapter 8: The Not So New Criticism: Reconfigured, yet Unregenerate………….246 Part III: The Amassment of Resistance ………………………………………………..304 Chapter 9: Black, White, Gray and Brown : The Old Dominion Confronts Integration………………………………………………………………310 Chapter 10: Byrd Watching: The South on the National Stage……………………...334 Chapter 11: Excursion into Fantasy: The Doctrine of Interposition…………………373 Epilogue : Operation Dixie: The Politics of Inferiority…………………………….420 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….450 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………...476 ix Chapter 1 The Real Burden of Southern History A constant assault from without, an indictment of every aspect of their civilization, was the burden under which Southerners lived for more than a century (as if defeat and poverty and failure were not enough), and it is little wonder that such a legacy created men and women who sought to justify their past and their tradition. But the siege from without was not all, was not even the principal factor in turning the Southern mind upon itself. Even greater was the pressure from within—the doubt honest Southerners had about 1 themselves and their own past—for the burden of Southern history was a burden primarily self-imposed . −Fred Hobson Despite the crucial roles of prominent southerners in securing America’s independence and drafting its fundamental documents of state, with the infant nation’s literary and publishing core already fixed firmly in the Northeast, it was hardly surprising that, even in its embryonic phase, the dominant vision of American character emphasized northern sensibilities and perceptions. One of these perceptions, and a difficult one to dismiss, was that the major impediment to constructing an inspiring and credible identity for a nation supposedly committed to the principles of liberty, equality, and democracy was a southern economy, society, and culture shaped and sustained by human bondage. As the leaders of the young republic struggled to gain the acceptance and respect of other nations, northern architects of national identity soon realized that their vision of America would not only be much simpler to construct but also much easier to look at and far more emphatic and unequivocal in meaning if they simply focused on what they saw, or sometimes chose to see, in the states above the recently drawn Mason-Dixon line. 2 −James C. Cobb Why do they live there? Why do they live at all? 3 −from William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! In February 1950, Eleanor Roosevelt visited the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and made several speeches on campus. When she returned to New York, her trip served as the subject of her syndicated column, “My Day,” that she tirelessly produced six days a week from 1935 to 1962, pausing only to mourn the death of her husband. In this piece, Roosevelt discussed her southern roots. Her grandmother had been a member of the Bulloch family from Georgia, and, although she described her southern relatives with great affection, she also criticized the