Schooling the New South

“What makes Schooling the New South such an important work is its account of how schools developed into centers of social transformation. . . . This valuable piece of scholarship proves that reform is a never-ending cycle. If not built upon, one generation’s reform can be another generation’s problem.” — The Historian

“A fascinating history of the intellectual development, ambitions, and efforts of a group of educational reformers.” — Australasian Journal of American Studies

“Schooling the New South may be the best work yet in revealing the complexities of the transformation between 1880 and 1920 from one-room common schools to the modern graded school system.” — Southern Cultures

“Enlightening, thought-provoking, and a pleasure to read.” — Journal of Appalachian Studies

“An exemplary piece of scholarship. With graceful prose and deft analysis James Leloudis has succeeded in moving educational history (long considered a stepchild of the discipline) from the periphery to the center of studies of social change.” — Journal of Southern History

“Leloudis’s work is particularly effective in showing how the middle class used education as a means to establish a new social arrangement in North Carolina.” — Educational Studies

“Lively, forceful, and worthwhile.” — CHOICE

“Essential reading for students of the historical role of schools in American society, of the dynamics between reformers and the reformed, and of the emergence of the New South.” — American Historical Review

“Schooling the New South is well researched, gracefully written and effectively integrates educational, social, political and cultural history.” — Journal of Southwest Georgia History

“This important book supplants earlier studies of North Carolina’s education revival. . . . It is recommended highly for students of 'the Old North State,' the South, and American education.” — History: Reviews of New Books