John F. Kvach. De Bow's Review

John F. Kvach's biography of James Dunwoody Brownson (J. D. B.) De Bow, perhaps the best-known antebellum booster of southern industrialization, is a timely contribution to the growing literature on the modernity of the pre–Civil War South. Although historians frequently use De Bow's writings as sources for exploring the proslavery path to a modern economy, more than 50 years have passed since the last publication of a De Bow biography. Since then historians have called into question a long-held interpretation of the slave South as an economically backward, tradition-bound region out of step with the modernizing trends of the nineteenth century. Building on this work, Kvach provides a much-needed account of De Bow's role in propounding the compatibility of slavery with the growth of cities and industry. The book persuasively shows that De Bow, who began writing in the 1840s, promoted a vision of industrial progress and economic diversification for his region that anticipated many of the themes advocated by late-nineteenth-century boosters of a “New South.” Kvach's work also stands out for its detailed analysis of the readership of De Bow's Review, the subject's most successful publishing venture. An impressive appendix on the readers of the review shows that they were among the wealthiest in southern society, invested in slaves, plantations, and industry, and they tended to be much more urban than the general population.

Art history · Audience measurement · Biography · Diversification (marketing strategy) · Economic history · Industrialisation · Modernity · Political science · Population · Sociology · American History and Culture · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Demography · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society