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Reflections On Electricity, Modernization, & Identity In The New South, Matthew Henderson

All Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between the rhetoric of Southern reformers and the technology being adopted across South Carolina and Georgia at the end of the 19th century. The ideology of the New South, one that juxtaposed modern industry and old traditions, was fundamentally shortsighted in its failure to recognize how new technology would alter Southern institutions. Electric lights and power were widely viewed as neutral tools the South could employ to compete with Northern critics and achieve widespread hopes for modern prosperity. Because of this understanding of technology, one that is epitomized in the fanfare and optimism of the …