A Southern Intellectual Community: A Sociological Inquiry

Abstract

The immediate pupose of this thesis is to make a sociological analysis of Washington and Lee University as a Southern intellectual community during the first three decades of the present century. It is not here suggested that Washington and Lee was a "typical" Southern institution of higher learning -- if any such typical college or university existed. It identified itself with the South, however, and in many ways was, wherever it was known, regarded as Southern. . . . The key words for sociological analysis are the three qualifying terms applied to Washington and Lee in the title of this study. The problem to be studied involves community, intellectuality, and Southernism at the university from 1900 to 1930. [From Introduction]