Today we want to talk about the "New South." Not the so-called "New South" of today, with Atlanta struggling to become its regional capitol, but a place that came to be called the "New South" in the years following the Civil War. There were a host of Southern leaders eager to have the South rejoin the Union, eager to have the South gain economic strength and power, who built an advertising campaign that became, in part, a myth in American history, a myth that there was such a place as the "New South." More than any other individual, a young man named Henry Grady was responsible for the name, the phrase, the "New South".

Grady was the young, dynamic editor of the South's leading newspaper, the Atlanta Constitution, still one of the great papers of the nation. Through his editorials, through speeches, through writings, Grady tried to advertise to the rest of the nation, and to the world at large, a South that was no longer the South of the old plantation days, of the sleepy towns, of the magnolia blossoms, but a South that was dynamic, alive, ready to receive economic investment, ready to grow and prosper. Grady had his greatest opportunity when he was invited to speak in 1886 before an organization called the New England Society. This was probably the most prestigious organization of the Northeast.

On December 21, 1886, Grady appeared before this prestigious New England Society in New York City. He faced an illustrious audience of businessmen, politicians, and the like. Knowing that in his audience was the former great general of the Civil War and the Northern armies, General William Tecumsah Sherman, the man who had burned the city of Atlanta to the ground in the famous March to the Sea, Grady, to ingratiate himself with his audience, had this to say early on in his speech: "I want to say to General Sherman, who is considered an able man in our parts, though some people think he's a kind of careless man about fire, that from the ashes he left us in 1864, we have raised a brave and beautiful city. Some how or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks andthe mortar of our homes and have builded therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory." Grady went on to say that the Old South of secession was dead. That there was a "New South," a South of Union, a South of freedom, and that, thank God, that South was living and breathing everyday. Grady, then, in the rest of his speech, made three very important points:

1. The U.S. was no longer two separate nations -- Southerners had erased the Mason-Dixon Line
2. The Southern economy had changed -- industrialization had replaced plantation agriculture
3. Race relations had changed -- blacks were now partners in the "New South"

There are two ways to examine Grady's claims of a "New South." We can exam his claims, number one, economically. Number two, we can look at race relations and see whether Grady's statements were accurate or not.

1. Economically
Grady was not alone in advertising a movement, as many put it at the time, a movement from "farm to factory" in the states of the old Confederacy. Many people after the war began to argue that the war proved King Cotton was no longer king. Agriculture alone was not sufficient. The economy of the South must diversify. It must follow the pattern of the North. There were many who argued we must be less preoccupied with politics and spend more time luring outside capital to the Southern states. One of those influential people, in addition to Henry Grady, was a man named Richard Edmonds. Edmonds was, at age twenty-one, already the assistant editor of the most important economic journal that the South published. By age twenty-five, he owned the most significant journal, a magazine called the Manufacturers Record. The motto of that journal read:"The Development of the South Means Enrichment for the Nation."

Edmonds had two principle aims. First, encourage capital investment in the South. Second, urge all forms of industrial advancement. Edmonds, therefore, pushed for Southern states granting tax exemptions to industries that would locate within their borders. He propagandized for and succeeded in encouraging many Southern commercial fairs in which new products manufactured in the South were displayed. He was opposed to labor unions, as were most Southerners, indeed, as were many Americans at this point in our history. He was opposed to bargaining with workers. He was ambiguous about whether African-Americans should or should not be hired in industry. Sometimes he said they would make good menial laborers in the industrial workforce. Sometimes he said African-Americans were incapable of doing any kind of industrial work. Edmonds was widely respected in the North. He served as a member of the board of directors of many Northern banks. He held vast real estate properties. He was, perhaps, the best example of the gospel he himself preached. He was a materialistic, business-worshiping Northern at heart, just parading in the cavalier clothes of the old, true, Southern gentleman.

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