The Making of a Southerner

By Katherine DuPre Lumpkin

Book Overview

Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin was born into a prominent Georgia family and raised in a southern society intent on preserving the economic and racial status quo. But as a young woman working with the poor in the sand hills of South Carolina, she began to question what she had been taught. In The Making of a Southerner, Lumpkin re-creates the South of her childhood and records the journey she took from her early instruction as a daughter of the "Lost Cause" to the liberal viewpoints she championed as an adult.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820313858
• ISBN13: 9780820313856
• Release Date: February 1992
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Provides Great Insight

This book provides a thought-provoking and closely observed depiction of the early 20th century South in which Miss Lumpkin grew up, and also tells her coming of age story. The author is keenly aware that, as the daughter of a "good" (meaning in this context: formerly plantation owning Confederate), Episcopal family, she was expected to hold certain views. The book chronicles her intelligent examination of the views inherited from her family, and her eventual rejection of some of those views. Inevitably, the author has included her observations about race relations, although I found her depiction of class differences among whites, to which she (as the daughter of a "good" family) was so attuned, much more interesting. Although she is never as radical as a contemporary reader might wish, she comes across as observant, thoughtful and warm. Highly recommended for anyone interested in a humane and nuanced view of the early 20th century South.