Discovering the South

“This is a fascinating, rich account of the mid-twentieth-century South. Beautifully and inventively conceived, this book uses Jonathan Daniels to consider a crucial moment when the South (and the country) was on the verge of major changes. Ritterhouse’s book gives us a unique lens through which to explore the conflicts and uncertainties of where the South was headed in the late 1930s and 1940s.” — William A. Link, University of Florida

“In this impressive work of original scholarship, Jennifer Ritterhouse uses Jonathan Daniels’s 1937 tour of the South as guide to better understanding the nation’s struggle with the region. The wealth of subjects discussed and the ease with which Ritterhouse presents the era’s key events and personalities in well-crafted vignettes is inspired.” — Glenn T. Eskew, Georgia State University

“Fascinating and well-researched. . . . Ritterhouse has done an admirable job in transporting us to a time and place and a southern liberal’s struggle to describe a region on the cusp of change.” — Rob Christensen, News and Observer

“Puts Daniels' tour in context of President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and the growing movement for greater civil rights for all.” — Durham Herald-Sun

“How a Tar Heel Southerner discovered the South.” — Wilmington Star-News

“An uncommonly well-informed reexamination of the Dixie of the latter Depression.” — Ed Yoder, The Weekly Standard

“Scholars and a general audience will gain insights from this panorama of the New Deal South, its problems, people, and potential, and the quandary of a white southern liberal on his way to becoming a racial liberal.” — The Journal of Southern History

“Provides a good on-the-ground view of how the New Deal affected the South in large and small ways.”—Journal of American History

“Ritterhouse displays detailed interviews and document research to enlighten the changes that occurred in the 1930s in the South where Daniels traveled. Recommended for academic, public, and archival libraries.”—The Southeastern Librarian