On the economic side, she traces tourism in the South. Wealthy northern industrialists vacationed in the South, which was perceived as a playground and escape from their serious work. Thus emerged the image of northern men romancing southern women, reinforcing the symbolic contrast of North as male, South as female. The economic and social tendency was exaggerated by plays and stories featuring this romantic theme. Silber could have traced a few exceptions such as the Woodruffs, Dukes, and others.
Stereotypes die hard.
Here some comparative perspective is helpful. The story that Silber tells is not unique to the South but is familiar to students of colonialism and capitalism globally. A common pattern is for the capitalistic, industrial culture to colonize the agrarian one, then to stereotype the colonized as psychologically, culturally, and economically weak. Silber's work is, at least to me, as a non-historian, classically informative about an American pattern with global resonances. All rights reserved.