An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730-1815

Joyce E. Chaplin

UNC Press Books, 1993 - History - 429 pages

In An Anxious Pursuit, Joyce Chaplin examines the impact of the Enlightenment ideas of progress on the lives and minds of American planters in the colonial Lower South. She focuses particularly on the influence of Scottish notions of progress, trac

Contents

• Perspectives on the Development of a Plantation Region: 1
• The Fate of Progress in the Early Lower South: 23
• The Idea of Material Progress: 26
• Local Discussion: 37
• Slavery Sentiment and Stasis: 53
• Being Exotic: 66
• Species of Eternity: 68
• Travelers AccountsScience and Fiction: 71
• The Local Work Ethic: 92
• Fevers and Strangers: 93
• Duties and Improvements: 108
• A Problem: 117
• Social Mobility: 128
• Projects and Power: 131
• Patrons of the Exotic: 134
• The Case of Silk: 158
• The Upcountry Responds: 165
• Crisis and Response Indigo and Cotton: 187
• An Imperial Blue: 190
• A Patriotic Fiber: 208
• The Luxury Staple: 220
• Crisis and Response Tidal Rice Cultivation: 227
• Rivers: 228
• Mills: 251
• Power: 262
• Creating a Cotton South: 277
• The Geography of Opportunity: 281
• The Gin: 307
• Slavery: 319
• Factories and Fields: 330
• Domestic Diversification: 332
• Final Crisis: 345
• Slavery Progressand the Federonational Union: 356
• Statistical Method: 367
• Bibliography: 369
• Index: 397

Bibliographic information

• Title: An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730-1815; Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American Hist; Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia Series
• Author: Joyce E. Chaplin
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: UNC Press Books, 1993
• ISBN: 0807846139, 9780807846131
• Length: 429 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / State & Local / General; History / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)