Dreams of Industrial Utopias: Leading Manufacturers of the Deep South and their Mill Towns during the Civil War Era

Semester Spring Date of Graduation 2020 Document Type Dissertation Degree Type PhD College Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Department History Committee Chair Jason Phillips Committee Member Brian Luskey Committee Member Kenneth Fones-Wolf Committee Member Melissa Bingmann Committee Member Paula M. Kane Abstract Broadly speaking, this dissertation explores the intersection of industrialization and social reform in the nineteenth-century American South. It focuses on leading manufacturers of the Deep South and their mill towns during the Civil War era. More precisely, it investigates the relationship between these industrialists, their mill towns, and social reform efforts of the period. In the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, William Gregg, Daniel Pratt, and Barrington King created and managed some of the largest and most financially successful manufacturing establishments in the entire South. These men, however, were more than simply industrialists. They were also idealistic and steadfast social reformers who crafted and implemented ambitious programs of social reform in their respective mill towns. Interpreting Gregg, Pratt, and King in this manner adds significantly to our understanding of social reform efforts in the antebellum South. Moreover, so doing allows us to gain a more nuanced understanding of southern society and culture before the Civil War.