Economics and Southern Politics

1
Economics and Southern Politics

• Industrialization and the Rise of the Sunbelt

2
Culmination of Civil Rights

• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had
  kept blacks from voting
• Authorized federal oversight in elections in
  areas with a history of voting discrimination
• Section 5- changes in election laws need
  pre-clearance

3
Partisan Change

• Some white southerners, angry over change, vote
  Republican
• Segregationist Democrats have to change
• Blacks join the electorate in force over the next
  few years

4
The Souths Economy

• Agriculture
• Staple Crops
• Sharecropping, Tenant Farming
• Debt Peonage
• New Deal begins to break this cycle

5
Early Industrialization

• Textiles dominates by 1900
• Industries based on natural resources
• Timber-Lumber-Sawmills
• Later - Furniture
• Tobacco-Cigarettes
• Chemicals
• Low Skill, Low Wage, Low Value Added

6
New Deal Agriculture

• The New Deal tries to restore prosperity to
  farming by cutting production
• Domestic allotments limits on how much farmers
  can grow
• Farmers dont need as many tenants
• Can use soil conservation payments to buy
  mechanical equipment
• Begins to force large numbers out of farming

7
World War II

• South looks to benefit from wartime growth
• Seek federal military spending
• Military Bases
• Defense Contracts for new industry
• Defense Contracts for existing goods
• Americans increase their savings
• Fear of a return to Depression

8
End of the Isolated Economy

• Fair Labor Standards Act standardizes wages
• Industrial capacity of the South grows by 40
  between 1939 and 1947
• Personal income more than doubled
• Per capita income rose from 59 to 69 of the
  national average, largest increase ever

9
Postwar Industrial Development

• States look to bring industry to the South
• Set up development agencies
• Offer Incentives
• Searching for specific types
• No organized labor
• Dont want to upset their way of life
• In much of the South, resource-based industry
  continues to grow

10
Demographic Change

• Period from the New Deal to the early 1970s sees
  almost revolutionary change
• Number of farms drops by more than half
• Population goes from 65 rural to 58 urban
  between 1940 and 1960
• By 1980, South is 75 urban
• 14 million people leave rural farms

11
Political shifts

• Several Supreme Court decisions affect state
  governments
• One Man, One Vote
• Balance of Power shifts away from courthouse

12
Sunbelt South

• Significant in-migration from other areas
• By 1970s, South is becoming more like the rest of
  the country
• What does economic change mean for the regions
  politics?
• What does income growth mean?
• What does in-migration mean?

13
Newer Industry

• Military
• Tourism
• Retirees
• New People, New Wealth, New Politics

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