William A. Link

Link, William A. The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930. Chapel Hill, North
Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Pp. 440 (with bibliography,
Notes, and index).

In The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, William A. Link identifies a central element amid the various reform movements spanning the latter part of the nineteenth century and the earlier part of the twentieth century: the clash between an urban middle-class reform-minded white peer group and the traditional rural self-sufficient and somewhat isolated population that peer group attempted to modernize. Although the title works on many levels – paradoxical elements seem to run rampant in the era; white moral advancement through African American disenfranchisement; education and health reform through gender powered politics to name but two – Link suggests the largest of the categories of paradox is the surrender of traditional local control government to oversight by state or federal government, and in some cases Northern philanthropy. In essence, urban reformers were willing to supplant traditional local democratic authority in order to accomplish their reform agenda.
Link delves deeply into the abundant primary source material. He uses that material to layout the individualistic societal structure of the rural south. Poor rural southerners relied on folkways and local mores to continue their standard of living. Link uses the example of local schools to show how entrenched local democratic control was in the rural society. Although the state pushed for betterment in local schools, regional authorities had little actual control over the outcome of reform at the community level. Urban reformers began to think in paternalistic terms of caring for their rural counterparts who seemed unwilling or unable to care for themselves.
Early education reform for African Americans fell under this paternalistic white supremacist framework. In an instance of paradox, Link shows how reformers were willing to have “black advancement” so long as it remained under the authority and control of whites. This was the reformers solution to the race problem: racial advancement under paternalism control.
The various reform movements often ran in a concurrent context of time. However, the early alcohol movement, prohibition, came to establish a working “model” adopted and adapted by successive reform agendas. Prohibitions turned to crusade-like approach in introducing and fomenting change. Prohibitionists identified the alcohol problem and cast the problem in the terms of paternalism: this need for this reform stemmed in part from the societal need to protect women and children from the horrors of the effect of alcoholism on their husbands. By appealing to the protection of home and hearth, reformers were able to garner public support for the issue and translate that support into public political policy. Education reform offered another key component of the “model:” oversight by northern philanthropy. Northern philanthropists insisted on a hierarchal control over the distribution of their funds to ensure accountability.
Health reform, and other various reforms, benefited from the working models established by prohibition and refined by education reformers. For instance, health reformers found it of greater benefit to create a system of centralized education to combat disease, such as hookworm, than to treat the disease in each isolated community. Through educational methods the disease became known at a local level and thus more preventable.
Critics have offered various challenges to Link’s work. Although Link uses paternalism as a touchstone, he fails to offer a clear detailing of what he means – although it seems readily apparent to this reader. Perhaps a more telling criticism is that the focus of the monograph is from the reformer’s vantage and little is heard from the rural people who underwent these reforms. Yet this seems nitpicking at best. Link presents a balanced and informative account of the paradoxical era of reform.… (altro)