Continuity of Cotton, The: Planter Politics in Georgia, 1865-1892
In the Continuity of Cotton Lewis Nicholas Wynne traces the twisted history of Georgia politics from 1865 to 1892, combining careful analysis and judicious interpretation with a closely constructed argument and a lively narrative to make a convincing case about the continuity of planter domination of Georgia politics after the Civial War.
Their unsuccessful effort to create a seperate nation has devastated Georgia's planters, financially and psychologically. beginning with the state constitutional convention of 1865 these "masters without slaves" set out to reverse the Union victory and to reconstruct the conservative republic of slaveowners thet had created in 1861. By turns, as Dr. Wynne's narrative explains, the planters reinstituted the economic, political, and social subjugation of former slaves, drove out the Republicans who had tormented them briefly in the radical phases of Reconstruction, reached a reapproachment with New South advocates that gave them control of industrial development, and quashed the populist movement aborning. Georgia in 1892 was, with slight modifications, as much of a planter republic as it had been in 1861.
Lewis Nichols Wynne completed doctoral studies in history at the University of Georgia. He has taught at Southern Technicl Institute, the University of South Alabama, and the University of South Flordia. In 1982 the Atlanta Historical Society presented its Alex Bealer Award to Dr. Wynne for excellence in historical writing.