The U.S. South as an Under-Developed Region

Abstract

Economic development (whether national or regional) is a longrun historical process which cannot appropriately be examined without reference to the past. For this reason, the present paper takes 1930 as the historical turningpoint between the U.S. South’s long period of economic lag and the more recent period in which it has closed much of the gap in material well-being between itself and the rest of the United States. We shall therefore begin by examining the relative status of the Southern economy in 1930, followed by a discussion of the historical, social and political factors which help to account for the South’s lag behind the national economy. We shall then turn to a statistical documentation of the substantial spurt in the South’s rate of economic development during 1930–60, concluding with a discussion of the job that remains if the South is finally to achieve full economic parity with the other regions of the United States.

This paper is a revised version of an article published as part of a recent book, Avery Leiserson (ed.), The American South in the 1960’s, Praeger, New York, 1964, pp. 22–40.