Abstract
In the fall of 1930 Harper and Brothers, an old and prestigious northern publishing house, brought out a collection of essays by “twelve Southerners,” entitled I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition. Described at the time as a Southern or Southern Agrarian manifesto, the collection came into existence, according to one of the contributors, as “a sort of happening”— “a coalescence of circumstances and people and conditions” unlikely to reoccur. The contributors, known as the Agrarians, were for the most part natives of the rural, small-town areas of the westernmost South, and most at some point had been affiliated with Vanderbilt University. Those primarily responsible for the book had been central figures in a remarkable literary group based at Vanderbilt and known as the Fugitives, Among these were John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Robert Penn Warren. In some respects the Agrarians were “a translation of the Fugitives into a new, and more public, form of activity.” Their manifesto, whatever else it was, was a “very Southern book.” Despite some sentiment to entitle it Tracts Against Communism, the title finally chosen was taken from the Confederate anthem.
Recommended Citation
Gatewood, Jr., Willard B.
(1982)
"The Agrarians From the Perspective of Fifty Years: An Essay Review,"
Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 61:
No.
3, Article 7.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol61/iss3/7
