The Southern hospitality myth : ethics, politics, race, and American memory

Resource Information

The work The Southern hospitality myth : ethics, politics, race, and American memory represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Union Presbyterian Seminary Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The Southern hospitality myth : ethics, politics, race, and American memory

Title remainder

ethics, politics, race, and American memory

Statement of responsibility

Anthony Szczesiul

Creator

• Szczesiul, Anthony

Author

• Szczesiul, Anthony

Subject

• Memory -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States -- History
• Memory -- Political aspects -- United States -- History
• Public opinion -- United States -- History
• Racism -- Southern States -- History
• Regionalism -- United States -- History
• Slavery -- Social aspects -- Southern States -- History
• Southern States -- Moral conditions
• Southern States -- Public opinion | History
• Southern States -- Social life and customs -- 1775-1865
• Hospitality -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Southern States -- History
• Hospitality -- Southern States -- History

Language

eng

Summary

"Hospitality as a cultural trait has been associated with the South for well over two centuries, but the origins of this association and the reasons for its perseverance often seem unclear. Anthony Szczesiul looks at how and why we have taken something so particular as the social habit of hospitality--which is exercised among diverse individuals and is widely varied in its particular practices--and so generalized it as to make it a cultural trait of an entire region of the country. Historians have offered a variety of explanations of the origins and cultural practices of hospitality in the antebellum South. Economic historians have at times portrayed Southern hospitality as evidence of conspicuous consumption and competition among wealthy planters, while cultural historians have treated it peripherally as a symptomatic expression of the Southern code of honor. Although historians have offered different theories, they generally agree that the mythic dimensions of Southern hospitality eventually outstripped its actual practices. Szczesiul examines why we have chosen to remember and valorize this particular aspect of the South, and he raises fundamental ethical questions that underlie both the concept of hospitality and the cultural work of American memory, particularly in light of the region's historical legacy of slavery and segregation"--Provided by publisher

Member of

• New southern studies

Cataloging source

NPS

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

The new Southern studies