Chapter 12Section 3: Birth of the “New South”

Key Terms• Sharecropping• Tenant Farming• Infrastructure • Carpetbaggers• Scalawags

State of the South• Many farms are ruined.• 1/5 of adult white men from South died in the

war.• Difficult to finance rebuilding effort, poor credit.

o Creation of public works programs, raise taxes• Low property values• Labor shortage• Economy not diversified

o Raise taxes, adopt sharecropping and tenant farming, diversify economy

The Republican South• Carpetbaggers, how did

they get this name?• They were Northerners

who moved down to the postwar South.

• Southerners thought they came to make a quick profit.

• Why would their be opportunity for profit?

Republican South, cont.• What is a scalawag?• Why would a scalawag be

viewed as a traitor?• What are some other names

for a “scalawag”?• Why would scalawags have a

lot of power in southern governments?

A Southern view on “Scalawags”

“Words are wanting to do full justice to the genus scalawag. He is a cur with a contracted head, downward look, slinking and uneasy gnit; sleeps in the woods, like old Crossland, at the bare idea of a Ku-Klux raid.

Our scalawag is the local leper of the community. Unlike the carpetbagger, he is native, which is so much the worse. Once he was respected in his circle; his head was level, and he would look his neighbor in the face. Now, possessed of the itch of office and the salt rheum of Radicalism, he is a mangy dog, slinking through the alleys, haunting the Governor’s office, defiling with tobacco juice the steps of the Capitol, stretching his lazy carcass in the sun on the Square, or the benches of the Mayor’s Court.”

Infrastructure Changes

• Why would the South have a lot of business opportunities?

• Infrastructure: public property and its services• Railroads, telegraph lines, roads, etc.• Funding also allowed for public education for all

states by 1872.• Developing infrastructure was demanding on

southerners, why?• Spending added $130 million to Reconstruction

debt.

Southern Industrialization

• The growth of railroads in the South.• By 1872, there was 40% more railroad track in

the South than before the Civil War.• How would railroad developments help foster

growth in southern cities?• Cities that prospered: Atlanta, Nashville,

Richmond, Memphis, Charlotte, etc.

Downtown Atlanta map

Peachtree Street in 1870s

Production Line• Southern industry did not produce finished

products, but did not send these products to Britain.

• Where would these products be sent?• Northern factories could finish southern pig iron

or lumber products, such as for furniture. • Southern textile factories developed, they spun

and wove the cotton.• What significant part of the finished process is

left out?

“New South” FarmingTenant Farming Sharecropping

• Did not own land• Tenants paid to rent

land• Had more freedom

with their farming• Farmers had to buy

supplies on credit at inflated prices

• Did not own land• The most common

farming arrangement• Families farmed a

planter’s land and gave a portion of the harvest to the family

• Potential to be harshly punished by planter

The Effects of Farming• Tenant farming caused white southerners picked

40% of the cotton, 10% pre-Civil War.• Farming agriculture focused on cash crops like

cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane.• Tenant farming created the merchant class,

which supplied the tenant farmers.• How does tenant farming compare to miners

during the Gold Rush?• Is selling supplies at inflated prices good

business or unethical?