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Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs

David Anderson Orcid Logo

Im@go: A Journal of the Social Imaginary, Volume: 25, Pages: 35 - 45

Swansea University Author: David Anderson Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.7413/2281813819609

Abstract

This article examines how white southern memoirists of the late nineteenth-century nostalgically constructed the Old South, using plantation life-writing to assert regional identity and historical distinctiveness after emancipation, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. These memoirs depict the antebel...

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Published in: Im@go: A Journal of the Social Imaginary
ISSN: 2281-8138
Published: Mimesis Edizioni 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa70625
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last_indexed 2025-11-05T09:59:57Z
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spelling 2025-11-04T15:23:49.0974278 v2 70625 2025-10-10 Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs ab4ee0b47b6880d60e869e92360aa45a 0000-0003-3568-9330 David Anderson David Anderson true false 2025-10-10 CACS This article examines how white southern memoirists of the late nineteenth-century nostalgically constructed the Old South, using plantation life-writing to assert regional identity and historical distinctiveness after emancipation, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. These memoirs depict the antebellum plantation as a harmonious, orderly society characterized by racial stability, rigid class hierarchies, and prescribed gender roles. The article carefully explores how nostalgia shaped these depictions, transporting former enslavers and their families into a romanticized past that glossed over, or elided, the harsh realities of plantation era slavery. Central to these narratives is the image of the ‘faithful slave,’ particularly the Mammy figure, whose depiction reinforced paternalistic myths. Through these rhetorical strategies, plantation memoirists sought to create a vision of race relations rooted in an idealized past, one that could influence future interactions between white and Black southerners to ensure continued white dominance within southern society and culture. Journal Article Im@go: A Journal of the Social Imaginary 25 35 45 Mimesis Edizioni 2281-8138 Lost Cause, Nostalgia, Old South, Plantation, Slavery 31 7 2025 2025-07-31 10.7413/2281813819609 COLLEGE NANME Culture and Communications School COLLEGE CODE CACS Swansea University Not Required 2025-11-04T15:23:49.0974278 2025-10-10T09:13:01.5642297 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - History David Anderson 0000-0003-3568-9330 1 70625__35553__d7a6667212d84d7eb9bb10baf204c07c.pdf 70625.VOR.pdf 2025-11-04T15:15:40.9337562 Output 835257 application/pdf Version of Record true Im@go journal is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence 3.0. true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
title Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs
spellingShingle Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs
David Anderson
title_short Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs
title_full Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs
title_fullStr Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs
title_full_unstemmed Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs
title_sort Nostalgia and the Emotional Turn in Postbellum Plantation Memoirs
author_id_str_mv ab4ee0b47b6880d60e869e92360aa45a
author_id_fullname_str_mv ab4ee0b47b6880d60e869e92360aa45a_***_David Anderson
author David Anderson
author2 David Anderson
format Journal article
container_title Im@go: A Journal of the Social Imaginary
container_volume 25
container_start_page 35
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
issn 2281-8138
doi_str_mv 10.7413/2281813819609
publisher Mimesis Edizioni
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - History{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - History
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description This article examines how white southern memoirists of the late nineteenth-century nostalgically constructed the Old South, using plantation life-writing to assert regional identity and historical distinctiveness after emancipation, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. These memoirs depict the antebellum plantation as a harmonious, orderly society characterized by racial stability, rigid class hierarchies, and prescribed gender roles. The article carefully explores how nostalgia shaped these depictions, transporting former enslavers and their families into a romanticized past that glossed over, or elided, the harsh realities of plantation era slavery. Central to these narratives is the image of the ‘faithful slave,’ particularly the Mammy figure, whose depiction reinforced paternalistic myths. Through these rhetorical strategies, plantation memoirists sought to create a vision of race relations rooted in an idealized past, one that could influence future interactions between white and Black southerners to ensure continued white dominance within southern society and culture.
published_date 2025-07-31T05:31:16Z
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score 11.089386

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