In "The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction," by Edward L. Ayers, there is an optimistic outlook on the southern American states after the Reconstruction period. Ayers talks about many different problems that the southerners face such as economics, politics, religion, alliances, and the overall lifestyle of the South. Even though Reconstruction hit the Southerners hard; Ayers argues that the political and social life in the South within the initial years following the end of Reconstruction are fluid, and that the conservative Democrats gradually came to dominate the area. Ayers demonstrates, just like the title of the book, the South holds a serious promise of success within the United States even through the struggle transitioning to a new world. .
Ayers captures the history of the South in the years after Reconstruction and the new turn of the century: a combined source of advance and acknowledgment of the contrary affiance of the New South. Ayers discusses a variety of major contrasts, including a time of advancement and repression of new industries and old ways. With talk about the limited Southern towns revolutionized by the advancement of railroads, Ayers describes going to the statehouses area Democratic redeemers swept from the leftovers of Reconstruction. From the new farmers being forced to grow nothing but cotton, to the new industries of Birmingham, and from corruption and acquaintance in the ancestors, to agitated accessible affairs of the prohibitionists, the author covers every aspect of society, politics, and the economy. It is in the Baptist congregation, the country store, the tobacco-stained cheap railroad car, and the acceleration of Populism, that the new South starts coming to life. The changes of economy and politics aside, the role of chase relations and the advancement of Jim Crow laws both play a major role as well. .
It is both a strength and weakness that Ayers restricts his story ultimately to the South within "The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction.
