| The study of the Southern distinctiveness is a forever theme, as well as the fascination, in the research of the history of American South. Since the 1950s and the 1960s, tremendous publications have been produced on such issues as "What is the Southern distinctiveness?" and "Have the Southern distinctiveness disappeared?" These works examined the distinctive features of American South in U.S. history and uncovered the positive role of the Southern Culture, either from a macro view of politics and economy or through the definition of the spirit and culture.This dissertation tries to open up a new visual angle in the research of the Southern distinctiveness, to discover the pulse of Southern history by observing the Southern social life during the social transformation period. The society in a transformation period is always in a state of changing, so it's sensitive to the essence of history. Moving across the surface of the social life, we could learn about those driving forces in the back, and understand how the whole society runs and unites in one system, thereby getting a multi-dimensional insight into the Southern history.This dissertation consists of seven chapters. The first chapter, titled "1877: the Starting of the Southern Transformation Period ", is the foundation of the whole dissertation, paving the way for the following chapters. It gives a generalization of those new changes in Southern politics, economy, social atmosphere and social ideology after the Civil War and Reconstruction.In the aspect of politics, although the Democratic Party's One-Party rule was redeemed, the Republican Party's governing and the freemen's participating in political affairs during the Reconstruction period brought a fresh democratic air into the political life in the South. In economy, the postwar planters continued theirs domination of the land and the labors, just like they did in the antebellum South, thus, making the South closer to the Prussian Road than to the democratic capitalist one. As for the society, whether in environment or in ideology, people were just in a constant struggle both for the new and the old.The next four chapters unfold a view of the social life of the South from four different angles of race, gender, occupational groups and life space. The aims of these chapters are to reveal the unique race relations in the process from a slavery society to a non-slavery society, to reflect the severe gender conflict in the transformation from a traditional society to a modern society, and to describe the transfer of social centers from an agricultural society to an industrial society. This is the social stratum throughout the study of the black and women lives as well as in the examination of farmers' and workers' lives.In the aspect of race relations, the Jim Crow system replaced the slavery, continuing to be the shackles upon the blacks. But the new system promoted the self-buildup of the blackcommunity, in which the mulattoes became the leading group due to their earlier adaptation to the American culture.Women's lives were no longer confined to their homes after the Civil War, but rather were enriched by the industrialization and urbanization of the new South. Yet, the change of their life style did not bring about a correspondent change of their social status. Thus there appeared a women's enlightenment, started by those middle class white women. These elite white women first responded to the social problems associated with industrialization and urbanization, then they became effective proponents for their right to vote. Being a particular social segment of the Southern society, two characters of Southern women's life are noteworthy, i.e., the living skill and sisterhood in poverty, and the mild fighting methods for women's rights. The double discrimination against the black women forced them to face their double tasks ahead: Sex and Race Emancipation. The tension between the restriction on Southern women and their strong human needs for freedom was expressed in Southern f...
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