In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt told a conference on Economic Conditions in the South that “the South presents right now the nation’s no. 1 economic problem.” Chronic poverty afflicted both black and white southerners, many of whom still lived in the countryside or small towns and struggled to make ends meet as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, or as textile workers. In the decades since, the South has arguably been transformed. Yet historians and social scientists question the degree to which economic development has changed the South. This course provides an overview of how the South’s economy has developed since the Civil War and introduces different approaches and questions such as who benefits from economic development and who bears the costs.

Dr. Andrew Harrison Baker is a Lecturer of History at Clemson University. His research focuses on the post-World War II American South. He has published articles on the history of the modern South, and he is currently preparing a book manuscript focusing on political and economic change in Greenville, South Carolina since World War II. He teaches courses on American History and occasionally works with graduate students interested in southern history topics.