In the aftermath of the Civil War, white southerners clung to the hope that a "New South" would arise from the ashes of the old. In The First New South, 1865-1920, Howard N. Rabinowitz examines the myth and the reality of the period in which the South sought to adjust to the political, economic, and social upheavals of the post-Civil War years. Central to that adjustment was the status of the region's newly free black population who played an active role in the drama. Throughout the book, the author emphasizes issues and characteristics that produced internal divisions as well as unity among both blacks and whites, treating neither as monolithic groups.
The book examines critical questions, such as in what ways was the First New South different from the Old South yet still unlike the North? Despite the impact of change, Rabinowitz argues, by 1920 the South was more as it had been in 1865 and less like the North than New South proponents had claimed. He explores ways in which this was due to a combination of spectacular changes in the North and resistance to change in the South. The problem, he says, was not that the New South was not new, but that it was not new enough.
