Oratory in the New South (review)

272CIVIL WAR HISTORY Oratory in the New South. Edited by Waldo W. Braden. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Pp. 286. $25.00.) This second volume in a series that began with Oratory in the Old South (1970) covers the period from 1870 to 1910. Consisting of eight essays which examine the speaking of selected issues and orators before Southern audiences, it carves out the theme, "the rhetoric of accommodation." This is in contrast to the first volume that emphasized the rhetoric of desperation. The eight essays analyze (1) the role of the ceremonial orator in purveying the four great myths of the Old South, the Lost Cause, the Solid South, and the New South, (2) the restoration strategies used in Georgia, (3) Henry Grady's persuasive strategies in defending racial policies and in advocating nationalism, (4) ceremonial speaking which served the cause of reconciliation, (5) the myth of the Lost Cause as built by the United Confederate Veterans, (6) the contrast in Booker T. Washington 's and W.E.B. DuBois' rhetorical strategies, (7) the advocacy of Southern women orators, and (8) North Carolina's educational reformers . This volume avoids the criticism made of the first volume, namely, that it dealt with only political speechmaking. The variety of issues and occasions covered is commendable. In view of the major theme of the second volume, however, that of the rhetoric of accommodation, and the book's focus on the way the speakers confronted "many difficult problems of spirit and morale," it is regrettable that the editor failed to include an essay on the role of the Southern pulpit in the task of restoration and reconciliation. Two essays on ceremonial speaking were hardly justified. A second area for which the book can be commended is the careful attention given by the authors to those elements they know best—the rhetorical dimensions. Though the approach is very traditional, the authors make clear in most instances what it is they are after and what rhetorical emphases they will provide in the essays. The common focus seems to be rhetorical issues, rhetorical strategies, and rhetorical effects. Two complaints with this second area are that several of the essays suffer from the same weakness that much traditional criticism does, an inadequate analysis of the audiences being addressed, and that most of the authors really do not define what they mean by rhetorical strategies. Sometimes their strategies are simply ideas, other times they are issues, and at still other times they are the means speakers use to maximize the acceptance of their ideas in the minds of the listeners. The third area, which I view as the greatest strength, is the extensive documentation provided consistently throughout the book, from the historical sources supplied in the footnotes to the bibliographic notes at the end of each essay. These provide a rich resource for the scholar to continue his/her investigation of the issues raised in these informative essays. BOOK REVIEWS273 Two minor weaknesses are the printing errors (at least six, some of them glaring) and the unfortunately brief index of less than four pages for such a diverse discussion of speakers, issues, strategies, and ideas. Overall, the editor accomplishes quite well what he set out to do— provide an analysis of how the South, following the Civil War, attempted to speak to itself, not the North, in an effort to regain its selfconfidence , its pride, and its feeling of integrity. D. Ray Heisey Kent State University The Hammonds of Redcliffe. Edited by Carol Bleser. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Pp. xxii, 421. $19.95.) As readers of this journal are aware, no story in America's history has been so often told, or has so well stood the re-telling, as the Old South and its demise. A major part of Carol Bleser's Hammonds relates the Civil War era as it has seldom been told before, through the eyes of a prominent South Carolina family, its dreams and worries, its successes and failures. Using the voluminous correspondence of the Hammond family of South Carolina, Carol Bleser has skillfully reconstructed the social milieu of elite southern family life from theantebellum period well into...