First published in 1949, Frank Lawrence Owsley's Plain Folk of the Old South refuted the popular myth that the antebellum South contained only three classes -- planters, poor whites, and slaves. Owsley draws on a wide range of source materials -- firsthand accounts such as diaries and the published observations of travelers and journalists; church records; and county records, including wills, deeds, tax lists, and grand-jury reports -- to accurately reconstruct the prewar South's large and significant "yeoman farmer" middle class. He follows the history of this group, beginning with their...

In The Southern Political Tradition, the distinguished southern historian Michael Perman explores the region's distinctive political practices and behaviors, primarily resulting from the South's perception of itself as a minority under attack from the 1820s to the 1960s. Drawing on his extensive research and understanding of southern politics, Perman singles out three features of the area's political history. He calls the first element "The One-Party Paradigm," a political system characterized by one-party dominance rather than competition between two or more. The second feature, "The...