Knowra Southern Agrarians Southern Agrarians The Southern Agrarians were a group of writers who defended agrarian life and a traditional social order in the 1930s, chiefly through essays, poetry, and criticism.
I'll Take My Stand : A 1930 collection of essays arguing that an agrarian society offered a better life than industrialism. This manifesto gathered the group’s best-known defense of Southern agrarianism.
Agrarianism : A social and political outlook that favors agriculture, rural life, and land-based communities. It names the broad tradition the Southern Agrarians adapted to their regional defense.
H. L. Mencken : An American journalist and critic known for attacking provincialism, Puritanism, and Southern cultural conventions. Mencken’s criticisms represent a prominent contemporary challenge to the Agrarians’ defense of Southern culture.
Allen Tate : An American poet, critic, and essayist associated with the Fugitive poets and the Southern Agrarians. Tate contributed to I'll Take My Stand and developed the group’s literary and political arguments.
Southern Renaissance : A revival of Southern literature and criticism from the 1920s through the mid-20th century. The Agrarians were one influential part of the broader literary movement that renewed Southern writing.
Vanderbilt University : A private research university in Nashville, Tennessee, founded in 1873. Several Agrarians studied or taught at Vanderbilt, where their literary circle took shape.
Industrialism : An economic and social system organized around large-scale manufacturing and industrial production. The Agrarians treated industrialism as the rival social order their manifesto challenged.
New Deal : The domestic programs and reforms introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration from 1933 onward. The New Deal offered a contrasting response to economic crisis through federal planning and industrial recovery.
Donald Davidson : An American poet, critic, and teacher who was a leading member of the Fugitive poets and Southern Agrarians. Davidson defended Southern regional identity in essays and later historical writing.
Southern literary tradition : The body of literature produced in and about the American South across different historical periods. The Agrarians argued that Southern writers should preserve a distinctive regional inheritance.
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