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272 Mildred Lewis Rutherford (1851–1928) The Redefinition of New South White Womanhood sarah case    Mildred Lewis Rutherford, club woman and educator, was one of the bestknown Georgian women of the early twentieth century.1 Mostly remembered for her work in the United Daughters of the Confederacy (udc), Rutherford was also an educator and principal of one of the state’s most prestigious schools for young women. Through these and other activities, Rutherford took part in the redefinition of race relations and southern white womanhood in the New South era.2 Although her justification of secession, support for the Confederacy, and romanticization of slavery might make Rutherford appear out of touch with early twentieth-century modernity, she played an active role in the economy and politics of the New South. Although she taught her students to emulate the modesty of the southern belle, she sought publicity for her own writings and waged an aggressive fundraising campaign for her school. Rutherford carefully monitored the behavior and social activities of students, but at the same time she taught them how to support themselves. A leading anti-suffrage activist and advocate for women’s domesticity, she nonetheless carved out a public role for herself, writing and speaking widely on political issues affecting not only her hometown of Athens, but Georgia and the nation. Indeed, her idealization of the Old South helped create national support for modern methods of racist control such as state-sponsored segregation and disenfranchisement. As a historian, club woman, and educator, Rutherford represented the New South quest to mediate modernity with allegiance to conservative understandings of race and gender hierarchies. Mildred Lewis Rutherford 273 Born in 1851 in Athens, Mildred Rutherford lived most of her life in the “classic city.” Athens, founded in 1802 as the site for Franklin College (which became the University of Georgia), sat on the northern edge of the state’s plantation belt. By midcentury it had become the population center of Clarke County. The town’s development depended on that of the college, and despite the school’s struggles to maintain adequate funding, retain faculty, and keep enrollment high, Athens succeeded in drawing settlers into rural north Georgia. In keeping with the town’s name, the university built impressive Greek Revival buildings that signaled what would become the town’s architectural ideal. Following this classical style, the elite of Athens built large, stately white homes with columns, large porches, high ceilings, and plenty of windows.3 Although the fortunes of Athens were closely tied to those of the university, agriculture drove the economy of surrounding Clarke County. In 1840, 80 percent of the county’s whites worked the land or supervised slaves who farmed for them. North of Georgia’s cotton belt, the county still boasted a few large plantations, and both the area’s rate of slave holding and its concentration in a few hands increased over time. Clarke County, however, did not remain entirely dependent on agriculture, and even boasted some industry before the Civil War. Thanks to the presence of local men in its corporate hierarchy, the Georgia Railroad passed through Athens, reaching the town in 1841. The railroad allowed Athens to become a major trade center for agricultural goods, especially cotton, and also encouraged the development of cotton processing in Athens.4 Rutherford’s maternal grandfather, Colonel John Addison Cobb, took advantage of the county’s economic opportunities, becoming one of the area’s wealthiest men. Cobb profited from investment in agriculture, the railroad, and real estate in Athens and the surrounding area. In addition to owning a plantation and 209 slaves by 1840 (only one other man in the county owned more than 200), Cobb served on the board of the directors of the Georgia Railroad and owned property in an area, still known as Cobbham, that became the site of Athens’s most desirable addresses.5 Cobb’s elder son, Howell, made a career as a politician, serving as a Democratic congressman for six terms (and briefly as Speaker of the House), as governor of Georgia, and as secretary of the treasury in President James Buchanan’s cabinet. Howell’s younger brother, Thomas, or T. R. R., was an influential lawyer who helped found the law school at the University of Georgia, codified Georgia ’s state laws, and wrote the wartime state constitution of 1861. His work as a proslavery propagandist brought him national attention, particularly his wellregarded study of 1858, An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery...

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