I'll Take My Stand
"I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition" is a notable collection of essays that articulates the Southern agrarian perspective in response to the rapid industrialization and urbanization occurring in the United States during the 1920s. Authored by a group known as the Twelve Southerners, this work encapsulates their views on the significance of traditional Southern culture and rural values, which they felt were threatened by modern trends. The writers argued for the preservation of Southern agrarianism, emphasizing its connection to a sense of identity and heritage amidst the changes of the time. They critically assessed the impacts of industrialism and urban growth, while also expressing a disdain for ideologies like communism and fascism.
The Twelve Southerners, who were linked to Nashville and Vanderbilt University, were prominent figures in literature and academia, and their collective work represented a significant literary movement. Over time, however, many of these writers began to adapt their views as the country evolved, reflecting a complex relationship between tradition and progress. Overall, "I'll Take My Stand" serves as a crucial commentary on the cultural tensions of early 20th-century America, highlighting the struggle between a yearning for a pastoral past and the realities of a changing society.
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I'll Take My Stand
Identification: Major commentary on Southern agrarianism written by twelve well-known Southern writers, historians, professors, and playwrights
Authors: Twelve Southerners
Date: 1930
A collection of essays, I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition is said to have been one of the most succinct, well-written, and meticulously defined statements of the Southern agrarian tradition in response to the growing industrial process in the United States. The book served as a summation of what traditional Southern culture and values meant to Southerners, especially in light of the social and economic changes during the 1920s.
Known by a variety of names, including the Twelve Southerners, the Vanderbilt Agrarians, or the Tennessee Agrarians, this highly educated group published a resounding outline of what Southern agrarian tradition, culture, and lifestyle meant to them individually, as well as to the region and the nation. As outlined in its introduction, I’ll Take My Stand confronted such modernist tendencies as industrialism, growing wealth within business, and the rapid proliferation of urban centers in the United States. Arguing that American tradition resided in the region’s rural and agrarian traditions, these individuals wanted to maintain Southern values while eschewing the excesses of industrialization and urbanization. While supporting the standards and lifestyle of Southern traditionalism (to the point, some believe, of defending racial segregation), these writers were also vocal in their intense hatred of communism and fascism. Over time, and as the United States continued to develop and prosper, most of the Twelve Southerners waivered in their commitment to Southern cultural traditions and values.
Perhaps one of the most common threads among the Twelve Southerners was their connection to Nashville and Vanderbilt University and their participation in an earlier literary group and magazine called The Fugitive. The Twelve Southerners included Donald Davidson, Henry Blue Kline, John Gould Fletcher, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Herman Clarence Nixon, Lyle H. Lanier, Frank Lawrence Oswley, John Crowe Ransom, John Donald Wade, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and Stark Young. While they were individually accomplished and well known in their fields, it was their collective statement of support for the Southern agrarian principles that cemented their names and ideas together. In the end, however, the majority of these Southern agrarians adjusted their earlier ideas to conform more to the direction in which the country was growing.
Impact
The Twelve Southerners’ book I’ll Take My Stand demonstrated the growing tensions within American society between the modernist industrial world of the 1920s and the nostalgic recreation of an older way of life. It was a most powerful and potent expression of beliefs from some of the best-known authors and scholars of the South.
Bibliography
Carlson, Allan. The New Agrarian Mind: The Movement Toward Decentralist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2004.
Murphy, Paul V. The Rebuke of History: The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.