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Article: The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- December 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861. By Jonathan Daniel Wells. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. xv, 321. $22.50.)
The portrait of an Old South composed of wealthy planters, yeoman farmers, and slaves retains a tenacious hold on Southern historians. By establishing the existence of a vibrant middle class in the antebellum South, the author complicates this view and in the process offers an ambitious and compelling argument about the coming of the Civil War and the origins of the New South.
Jonathan Daniel Wells addresses the complex problem of class formation with boldness, deftness, and sensitivity. He ...