| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 204 words from this article are provided below; about 591 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3 | The History Cooperative

Stephen Cresswell. Rednecks, Redeemers, and Race. (Heritage of Mississippi Series, number 3.) Jackson: University Press of Mississippi for the Mississippi Historical Society, Jackson. 2006. Pp. x, 283. $45.00.
It is difficult to imagine Mississippi in 1911 as "progressive." Images of a one-party government committed to white supremacy and willing to tolerate, even encourage, the lynching of blacks inevitably come to mind. Yet, measured against the harsh conditions of life in postwar Mississippi, and the limits of Progressive-era reforms in general, Stephen Cresswell argues, "emphatically, yes" (p. 226), Mississippi was a progressive state. He marshals solid evidence for that conclusion. Between 1903 and 1917, the state passed a direct primary election law that increased popular participation in elections, created a Department of Agriculture that encouraged scientific farming, increased school funding, passed child labor and work safety laws, and ended convict leasing.	1
Cresswell emulates Albert Kirwan's analysis of class relations in his 1951 classic, Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics, 1876–1925, while carefully grounding his own analysis of Mississippi's advances in the state's simultaneous political and social degradation of African Americans. Racist demagoguery, he emphasizes, flourished alongside agrarian class consciousness in Progressive-era Mississippi.	. . .

There are about 591 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.