As a resident of this area for a half-century and as an Architect and Urban Designer, I have tried to remain cognizant of the history of this area if not really well-studied. Recently, I discovered a book entitled, Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: magic city of the new South By Rand Dotson, who has done the research work, and very well, too.
Following, is a review of the work by Tom Lee of East Tennessee State University:
Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: Magic City of the New South. By Rand Dotson. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007. Pp. [xxii], 338. $42.00, ISBN 978-1-57233-592-9.)
Too often, the label urban Appalachians evokes thoughts of urban ghettos in northern cities and the so-called hillbilly highway. Over the course of the last few decades, however, a number of scholars have produced studies of cities within and on the outskirts of Appalachia that have illuminated the complexities of New South cities and their relationship to the mountains. With Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: Magic City of the New South, Rand Dotson has filled a huge gap in the literature and done it well.
In the 1850s the village of Big Lick, a tobacco manufacturing, warehousing, and transit center, developed around a depot located along low, marshy land, or licks, where surveyors chose to route the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad in Roanoke County. Although near ruin at the end of the Civil War, Big Lick achieved township status in 1874 and in 1880 claimed a population of 669, almost evenly divided between blacks and whites. In 1881 officials of Enoch W. Clark & Company chose Big Lick as the junction of two company-owned railroads, the Norfolk and Western Railroad and the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, and they established offices, shops, yards, and ancillary businesses. With the agreement of locals, railroad officials chose to rename the town Roanoke, and by 1883 Roanoke had become a New South boomtown with over a thousand new migrants, many of whom were skilled workers from the North and most of whom were white. By 1890 the city conceived and fostered by a single company had become what Dotson calls a "corporate town" with multiple enterprises independent of the railroads and an independent municipal government that, although factionalized, shared the tenets of the New South (p. 28).
Roanoke's economic fortunes aggravated political, ethnic, racial, and class divisions, endangered public health and public morality; and threatened potential discord and disorder. Throughout the late 1880s business and civic leaders utilized company paternalism, moral crusades, and appeals to a white-dominated urban ethos to check potential threats to city harmony, but the onset of economic depression in 1893 and the alleged robbery and assault by a black man of a white woman from a neighboring county inflamed simmering tensions within the city. When Roanoke's working-class whites, bolstered by rural whites, threatened to lynch the incarcerated suspect, the mayor, a Roanoke native and longtime city booster, called out the Virginia militia. A confused exchange of shots left eight people dead, wounded thirty-one, and forced the mayor, the militia, and other important citizens to flee: the mob hanged and burned the prisoner. The riot, crucial to Dotson's story, punctured Roanoke's reputation as a city hospitable to new investment, but it failed to force city civic and business leaders to address divisions in the city. Rather, in true Progressive fashion, they sought to restore Roanoke's image by channeling unrest into moral improvement movements like Prohibition into civic improvements like urban planning and sanitation, and into legalized expressions of "justice" like sanctioned hangings.
Dotson's work is more than a case study of a New South city on the edge of Appalachia or of any single group. With ample attention to primary and secondary sources, he explores the interactions of multiple interests within Roanoke and adds considerable complexity and nuance to the story of Roanoke's elite. While Dotson argues successfully that social conservatism and boosterism linked Roanoke with other cities of the New South, certain of his assertions need more thorough treatment. However, these minor points should not diminish the story that Dotson has assembled. Anyone with an interest in Roanoke, the New South, Appalachia, labor history, urban history, or race will find much of value in Dotson's work.
Thank you to Rand Dotson, who reminds all current Roanokers of many fences that must be mended as we move forward, while we remain cognizant of the fact that not one of us can live with the expectation that our very own great, great, grandchildren should make amends for our indiscretions.This is must read for all dedicated Roanokers, new & old.
APA
Lee, Tom. "Roanoke, Virginia, 1882-1912: Magic City of the New South.(Book review)." Journal of Southern History. 2009. Retrieved October 05, 2009 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-199800975/roanoke-virginia-1882-1912.html
