Notes
215 Notes Introduction 1. Jorantha Semmes to Benedict Semmes, June 21, 1862, Benedict Joseph Semmes Papers, SHC. 2. Evidence that women actively or implicitly undercut the Confederate war effort is shown in Escott, Many Excellent People, 23, 67; Bynum, Unruly Women; and Faust, Mothers of Invention, 37, 238–44. 3. Jorantha Semmes to Benedict Semmes, June 13 and July 15, 1862; Benedict Semmes to Jorantha Semmes, July 17, 1864, Benedict Joseph Semmes Papers, SHC. 4. Genovese, Political Economy of Slavery, 160–65. 5. Hundley, Social Relations in Our Southern States, 101–2; Sidney Root, “Memorandum of My Life, 1893,” AHC. Surprisingly little has been written on the public image of merchants in nineteenth-century American culture, particularly in the South; see Leach, Land of Desire, 116–17, 122–30. My research suggests that southern newspapers frequently depicted merchants as greedy and unprincipled; see Carolina Watchman (Salisbury, N.C.), November 10, 1832; Edenton Sentinel and Albemarle Intelligencer, May 1, 1841; Augusta Daily Chronicle & Sentinel, October 19, 1852; Wilmington Daily Journal, September 19 and October 9, 1854; Greenville Mountaineer, November 29, 1855. During the Civil War many newspapers attacked merchants for speculating in foodstuffs and war material. This popular discontent over merchant speculation figured prominently in southern food riots during the war. Two good descriptions of such riots can be found in McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 617–19; and Thomas, Confederate Nation, 201–6. 6. Beckert, Monied Metropolis, 8. In an insightful survey of the historiography on the American middle class, the historian Robert D. Johnston acknowledges Alan Brinkley, Christopher Lasch, and others for moving “away from considering ‘the middle class’ as one monolithic entity. Analytically . . . this very well might be the most important lesson we are currently learning—that the study of the American middle class can proceed only by denying the essence and unity of the very subject under consideration”; see Johnston, “Conclusion: Historians and the American Middle Class,” in Bledstein and Johnston, eds., Middling Sorts, 305–6. Jonathan Daniel Wells’s analysis of a broader southern middle class includes an excellent summary regarding the difficulties in defining such a class in the antebellum South; see Wells, Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 7–12. 7. Gay, Schnitzler’s Century, 26, 32–33; Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence; Hunt, Middling Sort; Leach, Land of Desire; Schama, Embarrassment of Riches; Fox and Lears, eds., Culture of Consumption. 8. William Faulkner, The Hamlet (New York: Random House, 1940); T. S. Stribling, The Store (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1932). 9. For a more detailed examination of popular depictions of the merchant class in antebellum southern literature, see Byrne, “Merchant in Antebellum Southern Literature.” 10. McVeagh, Tradefull Merchants, 1–2, 4, 16–19, 138; Watts, Businessman in American Literature, 1–5, 37–39; Price, Stories with a Moral, 64–65, 70; Longstreet, Georgia Scenes, 53–56; King, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, 10–27, 74–75; Simms, Guy Rivers, 52–53; Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: AMS Press, 1965), 123. For an early yet still influential discussion of the Other in world history, see Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). Popular depictions of merchants and their stores as disruptive forces in southern communities can be found in American film as well. In addition to other screen adaptations of Faulkner’s work, see The Long, Hot Summer (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Twentieth Century Fox, 1958), based on The Hamlet. Hollywood has often depicted the southern store as an arena where traditional religious and social values are challenged. It is hardly surprising that Scarlett O’Hara builds wealth in postwar Atlanta as the hard-bargaining wife, and later widow, of a lumber dealer; see Gone with the Wind (Culver City, Calif.: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1939). Alvin York first examines and eventually rede- fines his pacifist religious beliefs while discussing the nature of war with the local storekeeper; see Sergeant York (Hollywood, Calif.: Warner Brothers, 1941). 11. Doyle, New Men, New Cities, 87. 12. Doyle, New Men, New Cities, 89–90; Hundley, Social Relations in Our Southern States; Olmsted, Cotton Kingdom; Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry. 13. Wells, Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 7–13, 172–85, 209. For a discussion of southern occupations and jobs found within the Commerce, Professions, and Factory/Manual Labor categories, see Huston, Calculating the Value of the Union. 14. Ford, “Rednecks and Merchants”; Escott, Many Excellent People; Tullos, Habits of Industry. 15. Those who...
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