Southwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis - Hardcover

Noe, Kenneth W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0252020707 ISBN 13: 9780252020704

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1994

Synopsis

This innovative look at antebellum Southwest Virginia disputes traditional Appalachian scholarship, which has maintained that industrialization in the area occurred after 1880. Kenneth Noe shows how mountain modernization began decades earlier, with a regional railroad that contributed to support for secession and the Confederacy.
Combining an adept use of anecdote and detail with analysis of the written record, Noe shows that many supporters of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad viewed it as a political tool, believing it would spread slavery and unite the state. He focuses on the railroad's economic fruits - integration of the region into the tobacco kingdom, urbanization, a growth in industry, and the spread of slavery - and shows how these brought about political results. By 1860, the author argues, the railroad had indeed increased the region's dependence on slavery, deepened its immersion in the capitalist marketplace, and strengthened its ties to the state capital.

About this title

About the Author:

Kenneth W. Noe is an assistant professor of history at West Georgia College, Carrollton.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0252020707
• ISBN 13: 9780252020704
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 221