A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North (Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History) - Softcover

Franklin, John Hope

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807103519 ISBN 13: 9780807103517

Publisher: LSU Press, 1979

Synopsis

Frederick Law Olmsted, the northerner who wrote comprehensively about his travels in the South, had no southern counterpart. But there were thousands of southerners -- planters, merchants, bankers, students, housewives, writers, and politicians -- who traveled extensively in the North and who recorded their impressions in letters to their families, in articles for the local press, and in the few books they wrote.
In A Southern Odyssey the distinguished historian John Hope Franklin canvasses the entire field of southern travel and analyzes the travelers and their accounts of what they saw in the North. Many went out of sheer curiosity. Others went on business, to get an education, to make purchases for the store and home, to attend religious or political conventions, or to instruct northerners about the superior qualities of the southern way of life and warn them of the dangers of unbridled abolitionist attacks.
The more they went, the more they doubted the wisdom of spending money among their enemies. But they continued to go, even against their own advice to fellow southerners, and some tarried until the attack on Fort Sumter.
Concentrating as it does on the human side of North-South relations during the antebellum years, A Southern Odyssey represents a fresh and imaginative approach to a long overlooked chapter in southern history. It is also a handsome book, with twenty illustrations that comprise "An Album of Southern Travel."

About this title

From the Back Cover:

A distinguished historian canvasses the entire field of southern travel and analyzes the travelers and their accounts of what they saw in the North in a fresh and imaginative approach to a long overlooked chapter in southern history. "The thorough research, delightful literary style, and thoughtful insights provided by the author make this one of his finest works. No student of the antebellum period can, or will wish to, ignore A Southern Odyssey." -- Journal of Southern History

About the Author:

John Hope Franklin (1915--2009) was James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus and professor of legal history at Duke University. For many years he was the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He served as president of the Southern Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, the American Studies Association, and the Society of Phi Beta Kappa. He received more than eighty honorary degrees. His books include From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans; Racial Equality in America; George Washington Williams: A Biography; and Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938--1988.

About this edition

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0807103519
• ISBN 13: 9780807103517
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320