The Social Origins of the Urban South: Race, Gender, and Migration in Nashville and Middle Tennessee, 1890-1930

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, millions of black and white southerners left farms and rural towns to try their fate in the region’s cities. This transition brought about significant economic, social, and cultural changes in both urban centers and the countryside. Focusing on Nashville and its Middle Tennessee hinterland, Louis Kyriakoudes explores the impetus for this migration and illuminates its effects on regional development.

Kyriakoudes argues that increased rural...