The New South

Rapid and far-reaching environmental, economic, and social transformations marked the New South (1880–1910). Substantial industrialization and urbanization followed the expansion of rail networks across the region, and produced unprecedented changes in daily life for both urban and rural residents. White southern elites embraced these innovations and worked to ensure that state governments evolved in order to advance them. One of their most significant endeavors was the institutionalization of white supremacy in virtually every facet of public life. Black and white voluntary organizations complemented, and sometimes contested, the emerging economic and social order in the New South. Similarly, while many contemporary representations of the region in national culture trivialized the scale and costs of the changes underway, some artists offered revelatory portraits of a region consumed by upheaval.