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South, the |
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South, the, region of the United States embracing the southeastern and south-central parts of the country. Traditionally, all states S of the Mason-Dixon Line Mason-Dixon Line, boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland (running between lat. 39°43'26.3"N and lat. 39°43'17.6"N), surveyed by the English team of Charles Mason, a mathematician and astronomer, and Jeremiah Dixon, a mathematician and land surveyor,
..... Click the link for more information. and the Ohio River (except West Virginia) make up the South—Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. The contemporary South, however, is generally regarded to be those states mentioned above minus Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Texas, and Oklahoma. Geography, Economy, and Other FeaturesThe South has long been a region apart, even though it is not isolated by any formidable natural barriers and is itself subdivided into many distinctive areas: the coastal plains along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico; the Piedmont; the ridges, valleys, and high mountains bordering the Piedmont, especially the Great Smoky Mts. in North Carolina and Tennessee; areas of bluegrass, black-soil prairies, and clay hills west of the mountains; bluffs, floodplains, bayous, and delta lands along the Mississippi River; and W of the Mississippi, the interior plains and the Ozark Plateau. The humid subtropical climate, however, is one unifying factor. Winters are neither long nor very cold, and no month averages below freezing. The long, hot growing season (nine months at its peak along the Gulf) and the fertile soil (much of it overworked or ruined by erosion) have traditionally made the South an agricultural region where such staples as tobacco, rice, and sugarcane have long flourished; citrus fruits, livestock, soybeans, and timber have gained in importance. Cotton, once the region's dominant crop, is now mostly grown in Texas, the Southwest, and California. Since World War II, the South has become increasingly industrialized. High-technology (such as aerospace and petrochemical) industries have boomed, and there has been impressive growth in the service, trade, and finance sectors. The chief cities of the South are Atlanta, New Orleans, Charlotte, Miami, Memphis, and Jacksonville. From William Byrd (1674–1744) to William Faulkner and Toni Morrison, the South has always had a strong regional literature. Its principal subject has been the Civil War, reflected in song and poetry from Paul Hamilton Hayne to Allen Tate and in novels from Thomas Nelson Page to Margaret Mitchell. HistorySeventeenth Century to the Civil WarThe basic agricultural economy of the Old South, which was abetted by the climate and the soil, led to the introduction (1617) of Africans as a source of cheap labor under the twin institutions of the plantation and slavery slavery, institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services. The Missouri Compromise Missouri Compromise, 1820–21, measures passed by the U.S. Congress to end the first of a series of crises concerning the extension of slavery.
Reconstruction to World War IIThe period of Reconstruction Reconstruction, 1865–77, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War, the defeated South was a ruined land. The troubled economic and political life of the region in the years between 1880 and World War II was marked by the rise of the Farmers' Alliance, Populism, and Jim Crow laws and by the careers of such Southerners as Tom Watson Watson, Tom (Thomas Sturges Watson), 1949–, American golfer, b. Kansas City, Mo. Considered the successor to Jack Nicklaus as the game's foremost player in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Watson won the British Open in 1975, 1977, 1980, 1982, and 1987, the The Contemporary SouthSince World War II the South has experienced profound political, economic, and social change. Southern reaction to the policies of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society caused the emergence of a genuine two-party system in the South. Many conservative Southern Democrats (such as Strom Thurmond Thurmond, Strom(James Strom Thurmond) , 1902–2003, U.S. senator from South Carolina (1954–2003), b. Edgefield, S.C. He read law while teaching (1923–29) in South Carolina schools and was admitted to the bar in 1930. During the 1950s and 60s the civil-rights movement, several key Supreme Court decisions, and federal legislation ended the legal segregation of public schools, universities, transportation, businesses, and other establishments in the South, and helped blacks achieve more adequate political representation. The process of integration integration, in U.S. history, the goal of an organized movement to break down the barriers of discrimination and segregation separating African Americans from the rest of American society. The portions of the South included in the Sun Belt Sun Belt or Sunbelt, southern tier of the United States, focused on Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California, and extending as far north as Virginia. BibliographySee works by C. Eaton, H. W. Odum, and U. B. Phillips; W. H. Stephenson and E. M. Coulter, ed., A History of the South (10 vol., 1947–73); F. B. Simkins and C. P. Roland, A History of the South (4th ed. 1972); C. V. Woodward, Origins of the New South (1971) and The Strange Career of Jim Crow (3d rev. ed. 1974); D. R. Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers (1982); E. and M. Black, Politics and Society in the South (1987); C. R. Wilson and W. Ferris, ed., The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989); D. R. Goldfield, The South for New Southerners (1991). Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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