Reconfiguring Memories of Honor: William Raoul's Manipulation of Masculinities in the New South ...

266 Pages·2015·0.9 MB·English

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History Dissertations Department of History
4-24-2007
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Steve Ray Blankenship
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Blankenship, Steve Ray, "Reconfiguring Memories of Honor: William Raoul's Manipulation of Masculinities
in the New South, 1872-1918." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059645
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @
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RECONFIGURING MEMORIES OF HONOR: WILLIAM RAOUL’S MANIPULATION OF
MASCULINITIES IN THE NEW SOUTH, 1872-1918
by
STEVEN R. BLANKENSHIP
Under the Direction of Jared Poley
ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines how honor was fashioned in the New South by examining the
masculine roles performed by William Greene Raoul, Jr. Raoul wrote his autobiography in the
mid-1930s and in it he reflected on his life on the New South’s frontier at the turn of the century
as change came to the region in all aspects of life: politically, economically, socially, sexually,
and racially. Raoul was an elite son of the New South whose memoirs, “The Proletarian
Aristocrat,” reveals a man of multiple masculinities, each with particular ways of retrieving his
past(s). The paradox of his title suggests the parallel organization of Raoul’s recollections. The
“aristocrat” framed the events of a lifetime through a lens of honor, sustained by southern
gentlemen who restrained masculine impulses on the one hand and avoided dependency on the
other. Raoul the “proletarian” cast honor through an ideological retrospective whereby traumatic
memories of disappointment and failure were re-fashioned through a distinctly politicized view
constructed rather than recalled. Raoul’s business failures led him to re-conceptualize masculine
honor as a quality possessed more by the emerging working class than the rising commercial
class. Memory operates in this project as more than mere methodology as assumptions about
access to the past through memory are subordinated to an examination of the meaning of the
memories rehearsed by Raoul. Raoul wrote his autobiography at a bittersweet moment in his
life. While his personal fortune had been nearly wiped out by the stock market crash of October
1929, he clearly looked back on his career in the New South as a committed radical with delight
as the Great Depression called into question the legitimacy of the capitalist system that he had
long held responsible for his own professional failures in a variety of endeavors, from the cotton-
mill industry to box-car building and from saw manufacturing to a practicing accountant. Raoul
converted to Socialism in part to join what he regarded as society’s most progressive and virile
force. It is these two voices, the proletarian and the aristocrat, that are under examination here.

INDEX WORDS: Atlanta, New South, Gender, Class, Race, Honor, Masculinities, Socialism,
Labor, Cotton Mill, History of the Self, Plantation, Unions, Greenwich Village, Central of
Georgia Railroad, Memory Construction, Business, Sharecroppers, Lynching, Prostitution,
Contraception, Textual Analysis, Failure, Epistemology, Autobiography, Narrative, Modernity
RECONFIGURING MEMORIES OF HONOR: WILLIAM RAOUL’S MANIPULATION OF
MASCULINITIES IN THE NEW SOUTH, 1872-1918

by

STEVEN R. BLANKENSHIP

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the College of Arts and Sciences
Georgia State University

2007
Copyright by
Steven R. Blankenship
2007
RECONFIGURING MEMORIES OF HONOR: WILLIAM RAOUL’S MANIPULATION OF
MASCULINITIES IN THE NEW SOUTH, 1872-1918
By

STEVEN R. BLANKENSHIP

Major Professor: Jared Poley
Committee: Glenn Eskew
Alecia Long

Electronic Version Approved:

Office of Graduate Studies
College of Arts and Sciences
Georgia State University
May 2007
iv

Dedicated to the memory of my Mother

Joan Blankenship

and the encouragement of my Father

Ray Blankenship
v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation would not be possible without the generous advice, guidance, and
suggestions given by the following people: at Georgia State University – Prof. Glenn Eskew and
Prof. Alecia Long for their careful reading and constructive suggestions, Prof. Joe Perry, Prof.
John Matthews (retired), Prof. Steve Rapp, Prof. Charles Steffen, and Prof. Clifford Kuhn. At
Emory University – the Special Collections staff at the Woodruff Library, especially Kathy
Shoemaker and Naomi L. Nelson; at Georgia Highlands College a special thanks to Larry
Stephens, Susan Vines and Bill Vinson. John Russell of the University of Oregon Libraries and
Lyndele von Schill of the University of Virginia have shortened this task by locating hard to find
information. Thanks also to Jennifer Dickey, Curator of Oak Hill and the Martha Berry
Museum, for information on Berry College and its founder. I would also like to thank the staff
of the Lily Library at Indiana University and the Georgia Archives for their research assistance.
Thanks go to Prof. Robert C. McMath, Jr. at the Georgia Institute of Technology for providing
this author a copy of “The Proletarian Aristocrat.” I am in the debt of Warren Clark of Clark
Associates in Huntsville, Alabama for a copy of the Diaries of Sarah Lois Wadley, 1856-1920. I
should thank the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill for photographs and archival materials. For City Directories, I’d like to thank the Roswell,
Georgia Historical Society, the East Point, Georgia Historical Society, the Cleveland Public
Library, the Butte-Silver Bow Public Library and the Chattanooga Public Library. For assistance
other than academic, I owe Paul McHale and Jon Strudthoff a debt of thanks. I will always
appreciate the patience and support of my wife Helene who encouraged me to pursue this path.
vi
My greatest debts of gratitude go to my original and current advisors. Prof. Krystyn Moon was
present at the origins of this dissertation and skillfully guided its progress until her professional
life took her to new opportunities. Generously offering to assume the duties of advisor was Prof.
Jared Poley, without whom this project could not have been completed. Prof. Poley brought
critical reading, a sympathetic ear, attention to detail, much needed organizational skills, and a
perfect temperament for the challenges and pressure of completing a dissertation. For this, I will
always be grateful.
vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………… v
Introduction: Masculine Façades…………………………………………………… 1
Chapter 1: Fin-de-siècle Atlanta……………………………………………………. 33
Chapter 2: Lost Honor: Requiem for a Failed Businessman………………………. 65
Chapter 3: Intimate Honor: Practicing Sex and Gender…………………………… 115
Chapter 4: Honor Denied: Reconstructing Race and Class……………………… 154
Chapter 5: Alternative Honor: Socialism and a New World……………………….. 177
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………… 218
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………. 230