Antebellum
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Antebellum is a Latin word meaning "before the war" (ante means before and bellum war). In United States history and historiography, the term "Antebellum" is often used (especially in U.S. South) to refer to the period of increasing sectionalism leading to the American Civil War, instead of the term "pre-Civil War." In that context, the Antebellum can begin with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, or be set as early as 1812.
Popular images of the period
The Antebellum Period in the Southern United States is viewed by some with a kind of sentimental nostalgia as an idealized agrarian and chivalric society.This nostalgic view is variously due to the cultural memory of the great prosperity (later lost) of that time, to the widespread destruction of Southern infrastructure and society by the Union Army (particularly during Sherman's March to the Sea) and to the resulting resentment by former Confederate Army soldiers and others toward the Union forces.
Another reason for the nostalgic view is that the architecture and fashion of the period were better documented in this region of the United States than in other parts of the country, and in spite of the slavery upon which great Southern mansions were built, they and their mystique of opulence and prosperity are sometimes romanticized by some. Nevertheless, the nostalgia for antebellum Southern culture is heavily tempered by the reality that what made that life possible was the enslavement, suffering and inhumane treatment of African people.
The Antebellum Period romanticized
There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...
- — From the opening of the film Gone with the Wind (1939)
More than any other single American artifact, Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, Gone with the Wind and the subsequent 1939 film, have permanently fixed a slanted popularized image of pre-Civil War American history and are good examples of the romanticized view. In the romanticized view, the Antebellum Period is often looked back on with sentimental nostalgia by some whites in the U.S. South, as an idealized pre-industrial highly-structured genteel and stable agrarian society, in contrast to the anxiety and struggle of modern life. The issue of slavery is largely ignored, however, in Mitchell's, Gone with the Wind -- although she does make a point of examining the relationship between the slaves and their masters on the southern plantations.
Because of slavery, and the many human rights abuses it spawned, most African Americans find the romanticization of this era to be offensive, and often see a coded approving reference to the racism of the period in the term "Old South."
Antebellum architecture
The term "antebellum" is also used to describe the architecture styles of the pre-war South. Many southern plantation houses use this style, including:- The Hermitage
- The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland-although this isn't in the south literally (nor is it an actual house), it still is an example of the antebellum period architecture
- Monticello
- Boone Hall
- Middleton Place
See also
- History of the United States (1789-1849)
- History of the United States (1849-1865)
- Origins of the American Civil War
- Gone With The Wind - an insight into the American Civil War antebellum in Georgia.
External links
- [Antebellum Slavery (PBS)]
- [Aspects of the Antebellum Christmas]
- [Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]
- [Antebellum American History, 1814-1864] University of Colorado.
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