UA Professor’s New Book Examines Cold War’s Effects on South

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A new book by Dr. Kari Frederickson, a University of Alabama associate professor of history, explores how the Cold War changed the American South in ways that are just now being understood.

“Cold War Dixie,” just published by the University of Georgia Press, examines the impact of the military-industrial complex on the small town of Aiken, S.C.

Frederickson spent 13 years researching and writing about the Savannah River Plant, a partnership between the Atomic Energy Commission and the DuPont Corp. that produced components for the hydrogen bomb.

“It’s important to understand the impact that the Cold War and this specific corporation had on this small town in the South,” said Frederickson. “The Savannah River Plant introduced an entirely new cultural force that completely transformed the economic, political and social life of the area. This region, which at one time was the center of traditional southern industry — textiles — by 1960 became the frontier of nuclear science.”

The impact of the Cold War — the period of time following the end of World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 — affected the South in ways nothing else ever had, Frederickson said.

“You see average citizens participating in the Cold War not only by working for the Savannah River Plant, but also by partaking in consumer culture, in effect working to prove it was superior to communism,” she said.  DuPont prided itself on its line of consumer goods, the production of which it saw as critical for winning the Cold War.

Workers were paid better wages and earned better benefits than they’d had as mill workers or farmhands. The new prosperity meant major changes in lifestyle. It’s a recurring theme: Southern towns began to prosper due to proximity to the military-industrial complex.

“(The Savannah River Plant) brought suburbanation and a national consumer culture to Aiken,” Frederickson said.

The new plant meant other significant changes as well, especially when the 1960s civil rights movement hit.

“Aiken is an interesting civil rights story,” Frederickson said. “It was a relatively small town, but it grew exponentially due to DuPont’s influence. That changed how the community saw itself and how it responded to change.”

The civil rights movement, marked by violence across much of the South, was strangely peaceful in Aiken. Prosperity had come to the town, and the transition from segregation to integration was eased in part due to the economic fortunes of whites and blacks increasing.

“Although the area became much ‘whiter,’ you had a group of people who had been transplanted there from the North, so they didn’t cling to that way of life (segregation) the same way as someone who had been immersed in Southern culture might have,” Frederickson said. “They saw themselves as progressive, and integration in Aiken was largely a legal fight rather than one of violence.”

“Cold War Dixie” examines how the South responded to the needs of the expanding national security state, and it specifically details how Aiken was transformed by its association with the Savannah River Plant and the DuPont Corp.

In 1950 — the year the plant was created — the area comprising the Savannah River Plant and its surrounding communities was primarily poor, rural and staunchly Democratic. By the mid-1960s, the area had the most doctorates per capita in the state and had become increasingly middle class, suburban and had shifted politically to Republican.

UA’s history department is part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships, Truman Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.