Transforming the South: Federal Development in the Tennessee Valley, 1915-1960 (Making the Modern South)

About this book

Matthew L. Downs focuses on three developments in the Tennessee Valley: The World War I - era government nitrate plants and hydroelectric dams at Muscle Shoals, Alabama; the extensive work completed by the Tennessee Valley Authority; and Cold War/Space Age defense investment in Huntsville, Alabama. Downs argues that the modernization of the Sunbelt economy depended on cooperation between regional leaders and federal funders. Local boosters lobbied to recieve federal funds for their communities while simultaneously forming economic development organizations that would prepare those communities for further growth. Economic reform also drove social reform: as members of historically disenfranchised groups attained employment in the new industrial workforce, they gained financial and political capital to push for social change. Transforming the South considers the role played by the recipients of government funds in reshaping the South in the mid-twentieth century and demonstrates how communities exerted an unparalleled influence over those federal investments to shape the southern economy. -- from dust jacket.