Faith in Bikinis: Politics and Leisure in the Coastal South since the Civil War (Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South Ser.)

While traditional industries like textile or lumber mills have received a majority of the scholarly attention devoted to southern economic development, __Faith in Bikinis__ presents an untold story of the New South, one that explores how tourism played a central role in revitalizing the southern economy and transforming southern culture after the Civil War. Along the coast of the American South, a culture emerged that negotiated the more rigid religious, social, and racial practices of the inland cotton country and the more indulgent consumerism of vacationers, many from the North, who sought greater freedom to enjoy sex, gambling, alcohol, and other pleasures. On the shoreline, the Sunbelt South—the modern South—first emerged. This book examines those tensions and how coastal southerners managed to placate both. White supremacy was supported, but the resorts’ dependence on positive publicity gave African Americans leverage to pursue racial equality, including access to beaches often restored through the expenditure of federal tax dollars. Displays of women clad in scanty swimwear served to market resorts via pamphlets, newspaper promotions, and film. Yet such marketing of sexuality was couched in the form of carefully managed beauty contests and the language of Christian wholesomeness widely celebrated by resort boosters. Prohibition laws were openly flaunted in Galveston, Biloxi, Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, and elsewhere. Yet revenue from sales taxes made states reluctant to rein in resort activities. This revenue bridged the divide between the coastal resorts and agricultural interests, creating a space for the New South to come into being. "This is a study of six beach resort communities on the U.S. South's Atlantic and Gulf coasts: Galveston, Biloxi, Panama City, St. Augustine, Myrtle Beach, and Virginia Beach. As these cities became leisure destinations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Anthony Stanonis argues, they were forced to balance the competing demands of modernizing consumer culture and Southern traditionalism. They also participated in an especially delicate dance regarding race--one involving everything from cultural anxieties around tanning to a practical desire to tamp down the sort of racial conflict that might discourage tourism. Stanonis suggests that these negotiations were not always successful. Residents of the beach towns who did not profit from tourism and resented catering to outsiders' values, for example, sometimes struck back through acts of violence. Stanonis traces the rise of the infrastructure of tourism, the tensions of preserving the environment, and the development of a profitable industry in a clear and objective fashion. More importantly, he explores the complexities of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and the tensions between a resort's illegal underground and its 'family entertainment.' The text contains a breadth of archival sources--including the author's own personal collection. The sources blend the perspectives of boosters and developers with those of residents and tourists. Stanonis skillfully weaves the stories of actual people throughout the historical narrative he constructs, which makes the manuscript both more enjoyable and more relevant"-- Provided by publisher Scope and content: "This is a study of six beach resort communities on the U.S. South's Atlantic and Gulf coasts: Galveston, Biloxi, Panama City, St. Augustine, Myrtle Beach, and Virginia Beach. As these cities became leisure destinations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Anthony Stanonis argues, they were forced to balance the competing demands of modernizing consumer culture and Southern traditionalism. They also participated in an especially delicate dance regarding race--one involving everything from cultural anxieties around tanning to a practical desire to tamp down the sort of racial conflict that might discourage tourism. Stanonis suggests that these negotiations were not always successful. Residents of the beach towns who did not profit from tourism and resented catering to outsiders' values, for example, sometimes struck back through acts of violence. Stanonis traces the rise of the infrastructure of tourism, the tensions of preserving the environment, and the development of a profitable industry in a clear and objective fashion. More importantly, he explores the complexities of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and the tensions between a resort's illegal underground and its 'family entertainment.' The text contains a breadth of archival sources--including the author's own personal collection. The sources blend the perspectives of boosters and developers with those of residents and tourists. Stanonis skillfully weaves the stories of actual people throughout the historical narrative he constructs, which makes the manuscript both more enjoyable and more relevant" Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction. Heading South 1 18 Chapter 1. Coastal Empires: Southern Beach Resorts and the Rise of the Sunbelt 34 Chapter 2. Sand Storms: Mosquitoes, Hurricanes, and the Environmental Movement 74 Chapter 3. Black and Tan: Race, Tanning, and the Civil Rights Movement 120 Chapter 4. Beach Belles: Femininity, Religion, and the Sexual Revolution 165 Chapter 5. Wet Lands: Moonshine, Gambling, and the Slow Death of Prohibition 202 Epilogue. Sunbelt Fetes 242 Notes 244 Bibliography 282 Index 304 A 304 B 305 C 306 D 307 E 308 F 308 G 309 H 310 I 311 J 311 K 311 L 312 M 312 N 314 O 314 P 315 Q 316 R 316 S 317 T 318 U 319 V 319 W 320 Y 320 Z 320