Honor and Violence in the Old South

by Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Hailed as a classic by reviewers and historians, Bertram Wyatt-Brown's Southern Honor now appears in abridged form under the title Honor and Violence in the Old South. Winner of a Phi Alpha Theta Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, this is the first major reinterpretation of Southern life and custom since W.J. Cash's The Mind of the South. It explores the meaning and expression of the ancient code of honor as whites--both slaveholders and non-slaveholders--applied it to their lives. Wyatt-Brown argues persuasively that Southern ethical habits and traditions are the basis of regional distinctiveness and helped to perpetuate and justify the South's most cherised the institution of slavery. Using both literature and anthropology in innovative ways, Wyatt-Brown shows how honor affected family loyalty and community defensiveness. He also explains why, though it preceded and outlasted the demise of slavery, honor thrived on race oppression and was manifested in such violent acts as rape, lynching, and slave discipline. The work begins with a study of Hawthorne's famous story of a tar-and-feathering, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," and ends with an authentic lynching, an absorbing and chilling example of a public shaming ritual. Between these studies of fictional and historical violence, Wyatt-Brown deals with such wide-ranging topics as childbearing, marital patterns, gentility, legal traditions, duelling, hospitality, slave discipline, lynch-law, and insurrectionary panic--all of which were matters that gave white Southerners a special sense of themselves.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Civil War

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1986

Reviews

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an abridged version of Wyatt-Brown's Southern Honor: Ethics And Behavior In The Old South. The author defines honor in relation to the southern antebellum era. Honor was one's reputation and had three components, self-worth, self-assessment, and how the public views a person. Honor was a silent code among southern society. Those that broke the code or those who defended their honor resorted to violent acts such as lynchings, tar and feathering, and dueling. This book is broken up into two parts. The first mostly discusses honor and gentility, a form of honor. The second half discusses public ethics and violent acts in the name of honor.

Wyatt-Brown heavily uses stories from literature and from real-life situations pulled from archival records as examples of honor and how honor has been defended. From Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story My Kinsman Major Molineux to the real-life story of a murdered wife among the prominent Foster family of antebellum society, the author analyzes southern culture and society in the old South.

Some information seems a bit repetitive or lacking some substance. If you feel you are not getting enough from this abridged version, reach for his earlier work that dives deeper.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this book with a couple of preconceptions. #1, I assumed that much of the book had to do with dueling - incorrect, it deals with ALL areas of society in the (mostly Antebellum) South impacted by "honor" enforced by varying degrees of violence, which turned out to be about everything - from marital relations and childrearing, hospitality, gambling, education, politics, and entertainment, religion, slavery and race relations, etc. #2 I interpreted "honor" to mean the conventional, individual-oriented concept of personal honor - also incorrect. Honor in the Old South was principally a social standard used by the community to enforce norms. While there were some individuals that took the attitude of "To hell with everyone else; I KNOW what's right and what's wrong!" if their personal standards went against those of the community, they were shunned, and in fact often treated as if they had acted dishonorably. This was especially common in cases of lynching or judicial murder if officials or local gentry attempted to follow the law or actual evidence rather then public outcry. The period addressed in this book goes from the 17th through the early 20th Century but primarily focuses on the 19th Century prior to the Civil War. This is the abridged version; the author removed the footnotes and some digressions and expansions. I would have preferred is he had kept the footnotes as occasionally he made statements without stating the source material and I would have liked a bit more supporting detail. Interesting if fairly dry.3.5 stars.

[Bill FromPA · Rating 2 out of 5]

This proved difficult to get through despite its relative brevity and interesting subject matter.

Wyatt-Brown offers a mix of history, literary analysis, sociology, and psychology, which I found, in the end, unconvincing. The historical incidents he recounts are fascinating, but they cover a time period from colonial America well into the 20th century, too wide a swath from which to cherry-pick examples which support his theses. And it is theorizing which seems to be the driving force here, rather than close examination of the behavior and underlying mores of a particular era.

This is an abridgment of a longer work. I can't say whether the longer version would have been more persuasive - I'm unlikely to give it a try. One very bad decision was to reduce the page count by the elimination of end notes - a practice I cannot think a reputable historian would agree to. As it is, the OUP production work on this volume is surprisingly shoddy - numerical superscripts, often occurring conspicuously at the end of paragraphs, appear throughout the text, pointing to those excised annotations, like phantom limbs.

[Rusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the mind of antebellum southerners. While the South is different, vestiges of the old ways remain in the South. Southern motivation for war makes more sense after reading this book. I assign it in my Civil War class. It is highly readable and always well received by my students.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars only because this is basically an abridged version of the author's earlier book Southern Honor (otherwise it would get at least 4), but still a very readable introduction to Southern social life and etiquette.

[Alan Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.