Intellectual Manhood: University, Self, and Society in the Antebellum South

by Timothy J. Williams

In this in-depth and detailed history, Timothy J. Williams reveals that antebellum southern higher education did more than train future secessionists and proslavery ideologues. It also fostered a growing world of intellectualism flexible enough to marry the era's middle-class value system to the honor-bound worldview of the southern gentry. By focusing on the students' perspective and drawing from a rich trove of their letters, diaries, essays, speeches, and memoirs, Williams narrates the under examined story of education and manhood at the University of North Carolina, the nation's first public university.

Every aspect of student life is considered, from the formal classroom and the vibrant curriculum of private literary societies to students' personal relationships with each other, their families, young women, and college slaves. In each of these areas, Williams sheds new light on the cultural and intellectual history of young southern men, and in the process dispels commonly held misunderstandings of southern history. Williams's fresh perspective reveals that students of this era produced a distinctly southern form of intellectual masculinity and maturity that laid the foundation for the formulation of the post–Civil War South.

Genres: History

302 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

Reviews

[Julie Huskey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although antebellum North Carolina was considered something of a backwater, the University of North Carolina was the first public university in the U.S. to graduate a class. Williams argues that UNC students were far more concerned with their own intellectual development than with their regional (i.e., slave-holder) identity. Using letters, diaries, and records of literary societies, he describes how students -- all middle-and upper-class white men -- conscientiously developed the qualities they considered essential to leaders of their society.

While it was taken for granted that women, nonwhites, and people from the lower classes were excluded from academic life (there was, however, some discussion of the rights of others), the theme of self-actualization is familiar to many students today, and there is something admirable about college as a means to become the person they want, rather simply to get a degree. The language is rather repetitive, as if he constantly has to justify his thesis; even so, it's an engaging read.