A Study Of Southern Culture Of The United States In The First Half Of The 20~th Century

Southern culture of the United States is a distinctive culture because of itsuniqueness in the geographical location, climate character, slavery system andplantation economy in the South. It has been the object of the studies and focus ofhistorians, sociologists and writers. However, with the end of Reconstruction in thesecond half of the 19^th century and the speeding development of industrialization inthe South, the distinctiveness of the southern culture has been under the suspicion ofAmerican scholars. Some of them consider that slavery system caused the existence ofthe distinctive southern culture, and the southern culture would be“gone with thewind”with the destruction of this system. But others think that the distinctiveness ofthe southern culture still exists. Then whether does the distinctive southern cultureexist or not? If it does, where is it? Therefore, this dissertation illustrated and analyzedthe southern culture in the first half of the 20^th century from the aspects of southernpolitical culture, the southern economic culture and the southern religious culture.This dissertation consists of five parts: The Prelude, Chapter One The SouthernPolitical Culture in the First Half of the 20^th Century, Chapter Two The SouthernEconomic Culture in the First Half of the 20^th Century, Chapter Three The SouthernReligious Culture in the First Half of the 20^th Century and Conclusion.In the prelude, it mainly states the reasons and significance of choosing thesouthern culture in the first half of the 20^th Century as the topic of this dissertation andbriefly sorts and classifies the references in this field in China and abroad. It alsointroduces the study thoughts and methods used in this dissertation and the structureof this dissertation.Chapter One The Southern Political Culture in the First Half of the 20^th Centurychiefly studies the characteristics of southern political culture from the aspects ofracial culture, party culture and the southerners’political tendency. Americanpolitician V. O. Key, Jr. once said, the political problem was the the No.1 problem inthe South. Key’s attitude toward southern politics shows that on one hand politics andits culture are important in the southern culture; on the other hand, the influence ofsouthern political culture like racism culture deep-rooted in the South, embarrassedthe South and even the United States in the first half of the 20^th century. Therefore, the racism, the regionalism and southern black people in the southern political culure areanalyzed in this chapter.Chapter Two The Southern Economic Culture in the First Half of the 20^thCentury mainly discusses the influences of the economic consciousness in the OldSouth and the New South in the southern economic transformation, development andpolicy-making. It also analyzes the promotive function of President Roosevelt’s NewDeal, the Second World War and the governmental economic interruption in thesouthern economy. This chapter illustrates the cultural reasons caused the poverty andthe slow development in the southern industrialization and the positive and negativeaffects of the govermental economic interruption in the South.Chapter Three The Southern Religious Culture in the First Half of the 20^thCentury firstly reviews the historical development of southern religious culture andthen illustrates the origins, development and its characteristics of the southernProtestant culture, Catholic culture and Jewish culture. Here the black as one of thetwo major races, their religion and its culture are worth notice and discussion. Thischapter also illustrates the attitudes of the southern religious field toward the firstWorld War, the racial problems, the social status of women and the educationalproblems. Generally speaking, it can be considered that the southern religious culturepossesses four striking characteristics, they are conservativeness, exclusiveness,diversity and participation.In the conclusion part, the above analysis and illustration on the development andtransformation of the southern culture in the first half of the 20^th Century aresummarized from the aspects of the political culture, the economic culture andreligious culture. It can be concluded that 1) the distinctiveness of the southern culturestill exists; 2) but the distinctiveness does not remain unchanging, it has changed andis changing with the development of the society, so it has the changible characteristic;3) it has the feature of migration; 4) the southern culture is a pluralistic one. Pluralismis also the prevailing trend in the development of the world culture.