Twentieth-Century Agrarian Thought in the Upland South
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Mississippi State University Scholars Junction Theses and Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 8-9-2019 Native to the Soil: Twentieth-Century Agrarian Thought in the Upland South Alan Harrelson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td Recommended Citation Harrelson, Alan, "Native to the Soil: Twentieth-Century Agrarian Thought in the Upland South" (2019). Theses and Dissertations. 3266. https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/3266 This Dissertation - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Scholars Junction. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Junction. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Template A v4.0 (beta): Created by L. Threet 01/2019 Native to the soil: Twentieth-century agrarian thought in the upland South By TITLE PAGE Alan James Harrelson A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Mississippi State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Department of History Mississippi State, Mississippi August 2019 Copyright by COPYRIGHT PAGE Alan James Harrelson 2019 Native to the Soil: Twentieth-Century Agrarian Thought in the Upland South By APPROVAL PAGE Alan James Harrelson Approved: ____________________________________ Mark Hersey (Major Professor) ____________________________________ Peter Messer (Minor Professor) ____________________________________ Anne Marshall (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Alan Marcus (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Stephen Brain (Graduate Coordinator) ____________________________________ Rick Travis Dean College of Arts & Sciences Name: Alan James Harrelson ABSTRACT Date of Degree: August 9, 2019 Institution: Mississippi State University Major Field: History Major Professor: Mark Hersey Title of Study: Native to the soil: Twentieth-century agrarian thought in the upland South Pages in Study: 218 Candidate for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Taking the lives and work of writers from the Upland South, this dissertation seeks to find out how agrarian thinkers understood the place and meaning of rural life in the twentieth century. Scholars have underscored the degree to which southern agrarians both drew upon and shaped conservative, even reactionary, intellectual currents in the region. In doing so, however, they have flattened the contours of southern agrarian ideas, leaving the mistaken impression that a single set of values defined it. This study argues that no single point of view, set of beliefs, or value system shaped agrarian thought in the South, but rather, such thinking was made up of a host of different perspectives that collectively point to the continued significance of rural life to American life. Agrarian thinking is worth studying because it reveals the significance of rural life to American identity in a way that helps us understand how ideas about rural life continued to shape the American imagination in the midst of a national decline in rural communities. DEDICATION For Alexandrea. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Several mentors have shaped my thinking about the South and agrarianism more generally. Dr. Jim Farmer of the University of South Carolina helped shape my understanding of southern intellectual history. Dr. Jim Kibler of the University of Georgia taught me about the historical significance of agrarianism to American literature. The late Mr. Bill Cawthon of Eufaula, Alabama, a true scholar and gentleman, helped locate source material about the Fugitive-Agrarians and encouraged me to broaden my approach to the South’s intellectual history. I would also like to give special thanks to Dr. Will Hay of Mississippi State University for sponsoring an Earhart Foundation Fellowship that made my archival research financially possible. I thank Dr. Bill Campbell of Louisiana State University for helping secure a Richard Weaver Fellowship with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute during the early stages of my doctoral studies. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Mark Hersey and Dr. Peter Messer for their support during my research and writing. Together they pushed me to think about agrarianism in ways that make this dissertation better capable of making a contribution to the study of American history. Thank you, gentlemen. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: SOUTHERN AGRARIANISMS .....................................................1 II. DONALD DAVIDSON AND THE FUGITIVE-AGRARIAN MOVEMENT .............15 III. THE BEAUTY OF DIRT: JESSE STUART’S AGRARIAN AESTHETIC .................64 IV. THE STAY-AT-HOME: BYRON HERBERT REECE’S SENSE OF PLACE ..........103 V. “WHAT-IFING HISTORY IS A WASTE OF TIME”: HARRIETTE SIMPSON ARNOW AND THE NEW MEANING OF RURAL IDENTITY ...................157 VI. CONCLUSION: THE COMMODIFICATION OF AMERICA’S RURAL SENTIMENT ....................................................................................................194 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: SOUTHERN AGRARIANISMS Taking the lives and work of writers from the Upland South, this dissertation seeks to find out how agrarian thinkers understood the place and meaning of rural life in the twentieth century. Scholars have underscored the degree to which southern agrarians both drew upon and shaped conservative, even reactionary, intellectual currents in the region. In doing so, however, they have flattened the contours of southern agrarian ideas, leaving the mistaken impression that a single set of values defined it. This study argues that no single point of view, set of beliefs, or value system shaped agrarian thought in the South. Twentieth-century agrarian thought had no single birthplace, origin, or cause, but many. Like writers and thinkers across the United States, and indeed other parts of the industrialized world, agrarians in the South asked a multitude of questions about the condition and future of rural peoples and rural ways of life and found answers that proved divergent as often as they did complementary. As an element of this more widespread critique of how modernity played out in the twentieth century, agrarian thinking among southern writers is worth studying because it reveals valuations of rural life that highlight the continuity of rural identity and the significance of agrarian society to the American imagination in a way that helps us understand how those sympathetic to rural life struggled to make sense of a national decline in rural communities. Agrarian thinkers have left an indelible imprint on American thought. Writers and thinkers throughout the nation have long felt a need to understand and explain rural and agricultural ways 1 of living. In the wake of the Revolution, Thomas Jefferson saw the new nation as an agrarian republic, one predicated on the idea of the autonomous yeoman farmer who secured liberty from external influence and authority by working his own land in pursuit of self-sufficiency. Jeffersonian agrarianism taught that rural life was sacred because it preserved republican values and promoted a virtuous citizenry. Such ideas about the place of farming in the life of the nation continued to have influence over the country after Jefferson’s death in 1826. Richard Hofstader pointed to this fact when he wrote that “the American was taught throughout the nineteenth and even in the twentieth century that rural life and farming as a vocation were something sacred.”1 The history of agrarian ideas is made up of people with strikingly different backgrounds, beliefs, and visions, so much in fact that it would be difficult to find in agrarianism any collective mind. However, on the whole, agrarian writers from Jefferson forward have celebrated the sanctity of rural and agricultural life. This study takes as its subject a smaller segment of agrarian thinking that stretches back at least to the Early Republic, and in some ways, continues to the present day. The choice of writers from the Upland South raises questions about typicality. This study follows the lead of John Inscoe and others who argue, first, that “Appalachia has to be grounded in the broader historical trends and developments taking place elsewhere in the South” and second, that “the differences between the highland and lower South” are often “more of degree than of kind.”2 To the extent that this study is grounded in the material realities of rural life, it 1 Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), 7. 2 Inscoe also pointed out the northern origins of the idea that Appalachia should be seen as separate from the rest of the South. He summarized the work of several Appalachian scholars on this point by suggesting that “the illusion of 2 grants that changes to those realities followed a similar pattern throughout the region, even if those changes came at different times in different places. In many ways, a study of agrarian thought in the Upland South serves as a microcosm of the whole: it is more than probable that patterns of rural change, similar to those found in the Upland South, can be seen in other parts of the nation and the world during this same time.3 It is hoped that this dissertation,