I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition by Twelve Southerners - Original Manuscript

I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition was published in 1930 and was a controversial and much reviewed and talked about manifesto by Twelve Southerners exploring different aspects of the Southern tradition including economics, religion and politics. The eleven authors represented here are in the order of their chapters John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Frank Lawrence Owsley, John Gould Fletcher, Lyle H. Lanier, Allen Tate, Herman Clarence Nixon, Andrew Lytle, John Donald Wade, Henry Blue Kline, and Stark Young. The contributors came to this project from different backgrounds, although most of them had their careers in academia.

Robert Penn Warren’s essay was the last to be contributed. Its original title “ The Negro and the Agrarian Community” became “The Briar Patch” in the published book. This essay is not included in this collection.

Donald Davidson (1893-1968) was one of the original Fugitive Poets and one of the four who went on to become Agrarians. He, along with Allen Tate, was not only influential in bringing together the disparate talents for this book, but also instrumental in getting it published by Harper and Brothers Publishers of New York. The title was not wholly agreed upon by the authors, but nonetheless the book came to be published thus. Descriptive summaries of the chapters and brief and important biographical information about the authors are included in folder 1.