South, the definition of South, the in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

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 Features

The 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.

History

Seventeenth Century to the Civil War

The 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.
..... Click the link for more information. . Slavery might well have expired had not the invention of the cotton gin (1793) given it a firmer hold, but even so there would have remained the problem of racial tension. Issues of race have been central to the history of the South. Slavery was known as the "peculiar institution" of the South and was protected by the Constitution of the United States.

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.
..... Click the link for more information. (1820–21) marked the rise of Southern sectionalism, rooted in the political doctrine of states' rights states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
..... Click the link for more information. , with John C. Calhoun Calhoun, John Caldwell (kăl'h
..... Click the link for more information. as its greatest advocate. When differences with the North, especially over the issue of the extension of slavery into the federal territories, ultimately appeared insoluble, the South turned (1860–61) the doctrine of states' rights into secession secession, in political science, formal withdrawal from an association by a group discontented with the actions or decisions of that association. The term is generally used to refer to withdrawal from a political entity; such withdrawal usually occurs when a
..... Click the link for more information. (or independence), which in turn led inevitably to the Civil War Civil War, in U.S. history, conflict (1861–65) between the Northern states (the Union) and the Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy .
..... Click the link for more information. . Most of the major battles and campaigns of the war were fought in the South, and by the end of the war, with slavery abolished and most of the area in ruins, the Old South had died.

Reconstruction to World War II

The 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.
..... Click the link for more information. following the war set the South's political and social attitude for years to come. During this difficult time radical Republicans, African Americans, and so-called carpetbaggers carpetbaggers, epithet used in the South after the Civil War to describe Northerners who went to the South during Reconstruction to make money. Although regarded as transients because of the carpetbags in which they carried their possessions (hence the name
..... Click the link for more information. and scalawags scalawags (skăl`əwăgz)
..... Click the link for more information. ruled the South with the support of federal troops. White Southerners, objecting to this rule, resorted to terrorism and violence and, with the aid of such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan Ku Klux Klan (k
..... Click the link for more information. , drove the Reconstruction governments from power. The breakdown of the plantation system during the Civil War gave rise to sharecropping, the tenant-farming system of agriculture that still exists in areas of the South. The last half of the 19th cent. saw the beginning of industrialization in the South, with the introduction of textile mills and various industries.

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
..... Click the link for more information. , Theodore Bilbo Bilbo, Theodore Gilmore, 1877–1947, U.S. senator (1935–47), b. near Poplarville, Pearl River co., Miss. After study at the Univ. of Nashville (1897–1900) and Vanderbilt Univ. law school (1905–7), he was admitted (1908) to the Tennessee bar.
..... Click the link for more information. , Benjamin Tillman Tillman, Benjamin Ryan, 1847–1918, U.S. Senator from South Carolina (1895–1918), b. Edgefield co., S.C. A farmer, he became the leader of the backcountry whites in South Carolina and fostered their discontent with the ruling tidewater aristocracy.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Huey Long Russell Billiu Long, 1918–2003, b. Shreveport, La., was also a politician. A graduate of the Louisiana State University (1941) and its law school (1942), he served (1948–87) as U.S. senator from Louisiana.
..... Click the link for more information. . During the 1930s and 40s, thousands of blacks migrated from the South to Northern industrial cities.

The Contemporary South

Since 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) (thûr`mənd), 1902–2003, U.S. senator from South Carolina (1954–2003), b.
..... Click the link for more information. ) became Republicans because of disagreements over civil rights, the Vietnam War, and other issues. During the 1990s, Republican strength in the South increased substantially. After the 1994 elections, Republicans held a majority of the U.S. Senate and House seats from Southern states; Newt Gingrich Gingrich, Newt (Newton Leroy Gingrich) (gĭng`grĭch), 1943–, U.S. congressman, Speaker of the U.S.
..... Click the link for more information. , a Georgia Republican, became Speaker of the House.

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.
..... Click the link for more information. was often met with bitter protest and violence. Patterns of residential segregation still exist in much of the South, as they do throughout the United States. The influx of new industries into the region after World War II made the economic life of the South more diversified and more similar to that of other regions of the United States.

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.
..... Click the link for more information. have experienced dramatic growth since the 1970s. Florida's population almost doubled between 1970 and 1990 and Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina have also grown considerably. Economically, the leading metropolitan areas of the South have become popular destinations for corporations seeking favorable tax rates, and the region's relatively low union membership has attracted both foreign and U.S. manufacturing companies. In the rural South, however, poverty, illiteracy, and poor health conditions often still predominate.

Bibliography

See 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).