1Over the last twenty years, historians and scholars of Southern studies have devoted more and more attention to tourism as a fundamental element for the development of Southern history and culture (Starnes, 2003; Stanonis, 2008; Cox, 2012). Great interest, in particular, has been devoted to tourism promotion, i.e. how certain attractions, cities, counties, lured visitors; with which images, which themes, which rhetorical tools. What emerges from these works is precisely the extreme importance that tourism has had on the perception of the South and its overall image in the last century. In other words, the ideas usually associated with the South for most of the twentieth century were developed also as a tourist bait. In a sense, this appears as a further proof that corroborates James Cobb’s suggestion that Southern identity results mainly from “myth and invention” (2005, p. 316). There is no doubt that the classic image of the romantic “moonlight and magnolias” South, with its belles in crinoline skirts and plantation homes that for many years (and for some, perhaps, still today) represented the region in the mind of Americans and foreigners alike, is not something that simply evolved over time in a neutral way. On the contrary, that kind of landscape and image has been pursued with great determination by Southern economic elites in the early 20th century, with the precise aim of satisfying the desires and expectations of non-Southerners and luring them down South as tourists (McIntyre, 2011; Hillyer, 2014).
2The true protagonist of this process of construction and transformation of the appearance of the South has undoubtedly been advertising. Far from being just a way to sell a destination to someone, advertising is responsible for building up a consistent and credible destination image and identity, which also have a profound and long-lasting impact in societal and cultural terms and on the perception of a specific destination over time (Morgan and Pritchard, 1998; Mackay, 2005). Although countless pages have been dedicated to the Southern region in the 1970s, very little has been said about its promotional tourism efforts in those years. What images and themes were used? Is it possible that in a period of such great change and modernization, tourists were attracted just by the simple repetition of old themes related to the mythological narration of the Old South? In his fundamental analysis on the New Orleans tourism industry, for example, Mark Souther (2006) suggested that the 1970s was indeed an important transition moment for the image of the city, which opened to new and different promotional themes. However, his analysis is limited to a single city.
3William Brundage, on the other hand, wrote that “columned mansions, white belles in hoop skirts, Civil War shrines–these were the icons of Southern tourism during the 1970s” (2009, p. 310), thus suggesting that very little had changed since the 1930s or 1940s. Then, another prominent author, Ted Ownby, analyzing the tourist South of the early 2000s found that everything has changed and that the stereotypical image of the South had already disappeared from the core of the promotional narrative. According to Ownby, the South of the early 21st century had no particular identity as a destination anymore but had, instead, several different characteristics gained from the land and climate, some parts of history, modern economic change, cultural creativity and other sources as well (2003, p. 238). He defined the entire promotional image of the South through the concept of “variety trope”, that is, the desire to emphasize the existence of an infinite number of different attractions suitable for every taste and all equally important. The classic antebellum South was just a single element in a broader mix. Almost 20 years after Ownby’s observations, little seems to have changed (Santangeli Valenzani, 2019).
4Thus, something must have happened. In this article, I argue that the origins of the current tourist image of the South, so indefinable and almost chaotic, can be traced back precisely to the state-sponsored advertising material designed to attract visitors in the 1970s (and especially in the second half), a period in which the tourist South was in fact already more complex and multifaceted than suggested by Brundage. I argue how the very idea of variety trope was already the norm for Southern tourism advertising in the late 1970s, so that its 21st century version is little more than a refinement of that older form.
5It is also important to specify that this analysis will cover only four states (Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina) and their official, state-sponsored advertisements, which represented an obviously limited case study, but one extensive enough to attempt to draw some valid data for the South as a region. Furthermore, the so-called Deep South represents the most peculiar aspects of classical Southern culture in a concentrated form (Reed, 2003, p. 276), and even common perception tends, in some way, to consider it as the core of the Southern essence.
6Thus, in my research I considered only the promotional material produced by the four state tourism offices of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina. This type of material is the most significant here because it represents the very self-image these states wanted to project to the outside. Tourist offices were, and still are, departments of state governments, thus their promotion reflects what can be identified as the official tourist image of the four states, carefully crafted under the supervision of the tourist offices’ directors, who were personally appointed by the state governors and, therefore, also reflected their political agenda. Morgan and Pritchard offered an interesting and clear perspective on the delicate relationship between tourism advertising and political pressures from above, which inevitably tends to have an effect on the final promotional discourse (2000, p. 275).
- 1 Between 1976 and 1981 Alabama produced two booklets, Alabama Has it All and Alabama the Beautiful. (...)
7As for the corpus examined here, it includes two sets of items: 1) the ads published in journals and newspapers, and 2) the large-format brochures, or booklets, produced by each of the four states1. The latter are more complex pieces than the commonly intended brochure. Larger in format, rich in photos and descriptions, and averaging between 20 and 30 pages in length, they are true frescoes of the states, aimed to lure potential visitors. They usually contain sections devoted to illustrating the state’s history, art, landscapes, local culture, facilities, etc. Each state usually had only one official booklet at a time, which remained in circulation and was republished for a few years, before being replaced by a more up-to-date version.
8At the same time, each state also produced several and different ads to be published in different types of media. As the booklets, they also usually remained in circulation for a couple of years before being replaced. Some states had more ads, and some had less, but the most important difference was their circulation range in the domestic market. Taken as a whole, the four states of the Deep South advertised to other Southern states and to the Mid-West and North-East. Outside of the U.S., their ads almost exclusively reached Canada. In other words, each state was in direct competition with its neighbors to secure a share of the same tourist market. Georgia ads, however, covered a larger area of the United States than Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi. Mississippi, in particular, had the narrowest coverage (Santangeli Valenzani, 2020). What is important to note, is that the promotional materials were intended to circulate both outside and inside the South and thus be attractive to both Southerners and non-Southerners alike.
9Booklets, on the other hand, had a completely different distribution than the ads. They were circulated in two ways: provided to visitors inside the various Welcome Centers along the state highways or mailed to potential tourists who had explicitly requested them through a special coupon attached to the ads. Therefore, the paper ads and the booklets corresponded essentially to two different phases of the promotional process: the ad in the magazine or newspaper attracted the attention of the potential visitor, who would then request the official state booklet to be persuaded of the choice and plan their trip. The booklets were, in fact, also actual guides, which contained the days and opening hours of the various attractions, lists of hotels and other tourist infrastructures.
10Among the various promotional items produced by the tourism industry, brochures are probably the most studied from an academic point of view (Molina and Esteban, 2006; Getz and Sailor, 1994), as they had historically played an important role in creating a place’s image. Some scholars have focused on the visual format of the brochures, cataloguing illustrations and themes (Dilley, 1986; Jenkins, 1999) while others have studied the textual part (Choi et al., 2007) or both (Francesconi, 2011). Here, however, I chose to renounce the numerical-analytical method in favor of a more discursive and qualitative content analysis, such as that adopted by those authors who have examined advertising within their historical analyses (Stanonis, 2006; King, 2012; Simon, 2004; Cox, 2011), with the specific objective to find fractures with the classic canon of the Southern tourist image and revel the already ubiquitous presence of the variety trope.
11For a number of contextual causes, the 1970s were a period in which the need to reconsider their tourist image became almost a necessity for several Southern states. Trying to illustrate a complex phenomenon with a convenient schematism, it is possible to highlight two different sets of factors, some related to tourism and advertising, and others to the social and cultural context of the decade. The 1970s, indeed, have been a pivotal moment in the American history and culture as a whole. But particularly in the South, the decade represents a moment of renewal and transformation following the Civil Rights era and the struggle for desegregation. A moment, moreover, of reconciliation between North and South on different levels, including the cultural one. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), the first president from the Deep South since Zachary Taylor, was indeed the very symbol of this reconciliation.
12Traveling down South also became more comfortable and pleasant during the 1970s, thanks mostly to the diffusion of new technologies, especially the air conditioner, which made life more acceptable in the torrid heat of the Deep South, or the opening of new air routes and airports, which made the South more accessible (Eckes, 2005).
13On a deeper cultural level, moreover, well outside the boundaries of advertising and tourism promotion, the South of the 1970s was looking for new myths in order to explain its new cultural and social realities (Smith, 1985; Reed, 2003). The Lost Cause mythology and the old antebellum charm were no longer entirely suitable to represent the region, but it was not yet clear to anyone what would take its place.
- 2 “Economy”, The Clarion-Ledger, November 3, 1975, 12
14In Southern politics, the big news since the early 1970s was a new wave of democratic governors who put an end to race-baiting and carried out agendas aimed at attracting industries and jobs while also trying to improve the tarnished image of their states. Many of these new South governors were indeed among the main proponents of a new focus on tourism, which they identified as an industry capable of generating wealth but also improving the perception of the region. This attitude generally reflected in a competitive budget allocated for the Southern states’ tourism offices (Doering, 1979). As Governor Finch of Mississippi said during his electoral campaign in 1975, tourism should be “an industry, not a sideshow”2.
- 3 “Driving Vacations ‘Out’”, Statesville Record and Landmark, February 27, 1974, 11-A.
15Then, there were a series of developments and changes within the world of American tourism and advertising. Around the early 1970s, the so called “era of family vacation” came to an end (Rugh, 2008); the classic image of the suburban middle-class family travelling by car no longer corresponded to reality. Long family trips by car were already “a thing of the past” in 1974, as stated by the Georgia Tourism Director3. More and more people were travelling alone, or with their partner, or they were elderly couples, or mixed groups, or teenagers without parents. Thus, as Susan Rugh argued, the white suburban middle-class family ceased to be the main target of tourism promotion (2008, p. 11). “To go on vacation” was no longer only associated with the idea of relaxing with the family in some charming place; indeed, the existence of many different niche interests began to be acknowledged by the tourism industry.
16This lead directly to the second major point: the 1970s saw a profound change in the world of advertising. As legendary Madison Avenue executive Carl Ally said in 1977, “the ads must be fitted to the audience, not the other way around” (Fox, 1984, p. 329). If the target audience of the tourism industry was no longer the generic post-War American family, then advertising also had to address the desires of new travelers interested in niche leisure activities, thus advertising not only the state, the city or the county as a whole, but also focusing on certain themes and peculiarities.
- 4 Governor’s Conference on Tourism 1979, in Alabama Department of Archive and History, Tourism and Tr (...)
- 5 “Promote Tourism”, The Clarksdale Press Register, January 16, 1981, 4.
- 6 South Carolina Tourism Advertising - Proposal, Leslie advertising, 1979-1980, South Carolina Depart (...)
- 7 Suggested Implementation and Promotional Strategies for Plains Country Tourism Master Plant, in Geo (...)
17Black tourism, of course, was a new great force with which the Southern economic sector had to deal. In the 1970s, African Americans traveled a lot, embracing that ideal of travel as a synonym of freedom. They traveled abroad and within the country, and many traveled down South in search of their families’ roots or to visit the landmarks of the Civil Rights that began to appear at that time across the South. It must be said, however, that state-sponsored tourism promotion at the end of the 1970s was still conceived by whites for whites. However, a new timid attempt to add the black society to the overall picture was clearly underway, in conformity with a new trend in American advertising (Sivulka, 1998, p. 270). For many Southern states, this attempt was closely linked to the desire to overcome their bad reputation as backward and racist locations. This emerges very clearly from the documents and reports of the tourist offices. At the 1979 Alabama Governor’s Conference on Tourism, a round-table of experts in the field drew up a list of issues that thwarted or slowed down the tourism promotion efforts in the state. They openly complained about Alabama’s bad image4 and the same happened in Mississippi5. Even South Carolina had image-related problems. A survey held in 1979 reported that potential visitors had “no image at all” of the state6. Outside the area of Atlanta and its surroundings, even the modern and international Georgia suffered some problems regarding the perception of its inhabitants7.
- 8 Come see S.C, South Carolina’s Tourism Advertising 1979-1980, Leslie Advertising, SCDAH, S200039.
18In the 1970s, moreover, Southern tourism professionals acknowledged another important limit to their promotional potential: all the states of the former Confederacy seemed to offer very similar attractions, making it difficult to build a unique, original and winning promotional brand. In 1979, for example, the South Carolina’s Park, Recreation and Tourism Department (PRTD) considered Carolina in direct competition with all the other Southern states as they all offered “similar products”8. A problem very much felt by the admen in the 1970s, when the new gospel in advertising was all about positioning, which meant to fix in the mind of the public a certain idea of the product, choosing some of its features and using them to create a clear image, a memorable brand. Thus, Southern states had to deal with a double challenge. They had to build a more friendly and welcoming image and they had to promote themselves as entire worlds in miniature, suitable for everyone, full of every possible attraction, while at the same thing trying to differentiate from their competitors. This ignited the need for change.
- 9 The same happened on the front cover of the major tourist guide of Alabama, South Carolina and Geor (...)
19By the end of the 1970s, the variety trope was clearly visible through advertisements and the official tourist booklets produced by each state. A large number of different themes were introduced to potential visitors, both through texts and images. A new feature of tourism advertising concerned the graphic: in the 1970s, the tendency to create photo collages for ads and brochure covers appeared, so that the final picture was composed of several smaller images9 (cf. figure 1). Obviously, this was related to the need to evoke the idea of small worlds in miniature, full of many different attractions.
Figure 1
Alabama Has It All, ad on House Beautiful, March 1977, p. 51.
- 10 Mississippi, it’s like coming home, 1978, Mississippi Agricultural and Industrial Board, Department (...)
- 11 Survey, Mississippi Tourism Office, 1975-1976. In MDAH, Department of Tourism Subject Correspondenc (...)
20It is difficult to emphasize enough the importance that pictures and illustrations have both in advertising at large (Leiss et al., 1986) and particularly in tourism advertising (Scarles, 2004; Jenkins, 1999). Tourism images never merely present what is ‘out there’ (Barnes and Duncan, 1992), but “subliminally guide tourists via mediated discourse and an agglomeration of producer interpretations” (Scarles, 2004, p. 47). A photo collage, for example, is more than a mere list of possible attractions or a way to imprint in the visitor’s mind the very idea of abundance and richness of entertainment. The very same idea applied also to language, which in advertising is always emphatic, exaggerated and exciting (Dann, 1996). The idea of an abundance of attractions is a common trope, often used in tourism promotion. It is based on identifying the state with an overwhelming number of attractions, to convey the idea of a whole world, of a world in miniature (Hummon, 1988). This was clearly the idea behind tourist slogans and promotional campaigns from the mid-1970s like Alabama Has It All, or South Carolina…You Couldn’t See All of Me. This is also why each of the four states’ brochures opened with some emphatic references to the great variety of things you could do or see. Even Mississippi, objectively the poorest state in terms of tourist resources and attractions, in 1978 opened its official booklet with: “Mississippi awaits you with sights to show, stories to tell, decisions to ponder. Exuberant, growing, vital…a state sure of its present and future…Mississippi awaits you with places to explores, activities to share, ideas to present”10. Interestingly enough in the same time period, namely the second half of the 1970s, , the tourist office director was complaining about a serious shortage of attractions in the state11.
- 12 Text of a Travel South ad. Travel South was a regional association dedicated to promoting the entir (...)
21That the words on the booklet were obvious exaggerations and all-too-generous embellishments of reality, however, is not particularly important and should come as no surprise. Quoting Olivia Jenkins, in tourism “whether an image is a true representation of what any given region has to offer, the tourist is less important than the mere existence of the image in the mind of the person” (1999, p. 2). At a time when the entire South was reorganizing its image to be “whatever you want her to be”12, every state had to keep up with this idea in order not to lose ground or lose any niche markets. The same emphasis on an alleged infinite number of attractions also appeared in the ads. Consider for example catchphrases like “We’ve got everything from space centers to antebellum homes” (cf. figure 1) which also refers to the theme of the coexistence of old and new, or “Whatever kind of vacation you’re looking for, you’ll find it in South Carolina” (cf. figure 2). Despite the fact that this type of message had also been conveyed at times by older forms of Southern advertisement, the insistence and centrality of the theme in the late 1970s appear unprecedented.
Figure 2
Travel Kit ad, 1977, SCDAH, S200039, DPRT, marketing office, advertising proposal 1975-1979, 1976-1977 ads.
22To further emphasize the abundance of everything, the states also resorted to a new strategy that appears to be another novelty in the tourism promotion of the 1970s, that is, they all created different tourist sub-regions, and each was promoted as full of everything but at the same time unique in some way. Until 1978 Georgia was divided in 3 regions, then it passed to 7, while Alabama had 3, Mississippi 5 and South Carolina 10.
- 13 A good collection of ads dedicated to individual market segments are conserved in ADAH, SG 037009, (...)
23And then of course, to emphasize their immense number of attractions, each state produced a quantity of ads specifically dedicated to a certain type of tourist. Thus, by the end of the 1970s, the states of the Deep South were producing different ads precisely aimed at different market segments. There were ads dedicated exclusively to hiking, golf, historical attractions, fancy accommodation, fishing, tennis, family fun, beach tourism, outdoor and landscape, outdoor activities, state lakes, hunting, camping, the idea of a romantic getaway, the classic antebellum homes and, in Alabama, even to black heritage13.
24As the advertising standards of the period dictated, specific targets of potential tourists were identified, and each state tried to present itself as suitable for their needs, sometimes also by producing targeted ads. The target audience is reflected in the types of newspapers and magazines in which the four states placed their ads. We find them on sport magazines (especially golf and tennis), women’s magazines, magazines on home furniture, fishing, hunting, camping, honeymoon travels, vacationing, and others (Santangeli Valenzani, 2020). The classic monolithic image of the old plantation South obviously appeared downsized by this hyper-specialization of ads.
- 14 These and other ads are in SCDAH, S200039, DPRT, marketing office, advertising proposal 1975-1998, (...)
25The advertising agency that worked with South Carolina also found a highly ingenious method to support the idea of an enormous number of attractions which did not really exist. Thus, we find ads with catchphrases such as “South Carolina’s great Vacation No.55: Myrtle Beach”, or “South Carolina’s Great Vacation No:17 The Sea Islands”14. These titles gave the impression that there were more than fifty several advertisements for as many possible attractions. Actually, those numbers were purely promotional: after having captured the attention of the reader, in fact, the texts explain that 55 corresponds to number of miles of beach present in the state and 17 represents the number of islands.
26South Carolina undoubtedly had the most distinctive tourist image. Despite its unique place in American and Southern history, in fact, South Carolina offered a promotional image almost entirely devoid of any mentions of the antebellum South or the Civil War to its potential visitors, and its overall image focused mostly on ideas such as leisure time, beach vacationing and family fun. The only single big historical destination of the state was identified in the city of Charleston, however, which always presented as just a “colonial destination”. The 1977 travel kit ad (cf. figure 2) explained very clearly what kind of tourist image the DPRT was trying to evoke: a beach destination, full of all kinds of fun (sport, music, outdoor activities, as represented by the objects inside the bag). The same emerged in its official booklet, Come See S.C, published from 1980.
- 15 South Carolina. A lot of it looks a little like a foreign country, brochure/booklet, 1977, SCDAH, S (...)
- 16 Minutes S.C. Parks, Recreation and Tourism Commission, September 28, 1979, SCDAH, S200025, Annual r (...)
27South Carolina also pursued a promotional campaign that emphasized the multi-cultural contribution to the history and culture of the state. The 1977 small brochure called SC. A Lot of it looks a little like a foreign country15, underlined for the first time the contributions of the English, Irish, Welsh, French, Scottish, Africans, Jews, Swiss and German immigrants in Charleston. The black Gullah culture, also, became an attraction in the state promotional booklet. There was no Carolina advertisement dedicated exclusively to black culture, but an attempt to make the overall image less monolithic and white already appears evident. The preparatory materials found in the archives of Georgia and South Carolina, moreover, show how the two tourism offices considered the inclusion of minorities, especially blacks, a problem to be taken into account16.
- 17 Alabama the Beautiful, booklet, in ADAH, Tourism and Travel, Communications Division, Program Admin (...)
- 18 Alabama the Beautiful, ad, black history in ADAH, Tourism and Travel administrative files, Director (...)
28Black heritage was, indeed, the single most important news in Southern promotion. It should be said, however, that it was still an under-exploited part of the market. Black tourism was already well established in the South (and especially in Georgia, as much as the Deep South is concerned) but state tourism offices were only just beginning to perceive the need to open up to this theme. However, the second half of the decade appears to be the very moment in which black culture started to be part of the overall image offered to tourists. Alabama was the first state of the Deep South to officially enter the black heritage tourism market. The starting point was the campaign Alabama the Beautiful, launched in 1979. The official booklet produced by the state tourism office clearly gave black society a place in the overall image. Consider, for example, how Alabama’s history was introduced to the readers: “Alabama the Beautiful is part of the history of the Civil War. And the history of Civil Rights”17. This appears the first case ever in which the Civil Rights struggles became part of the official tourist landscape in a Southern state. Even more explicitly, one of the many ads produced in the campaign Alabama the Beautiful was entirely devoted to black history, as it stated that “No other state in the union is as rich in Black history as Alabama the Beautiful”18. Between 1976 and 1981, moreover, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi started publishing some rare advertisements on magazines for African Americans, especially on Ebony.
- 19 Rich in memories, Mississippi, in MDAH, Promotional Materials (1980-2007), Box 19769, Row 27, Bay 2 (...)
- 20 The photo is in GAR, DOC2-752, Industry and Trade, Public Relations, Publications 1978-1979.
29Blues tourism, a sector extremely related to black culture, began only in those years to appear in Mississippi (King, 2011), but state advertising never mentioned it. In 1985, however, the new official booklet of the state opened with: “Mississippi is... oldster sitting around the town square. Last home of Jefferson Davis. Greenville home of the Blues”19. Reflecting the recent trend in advertising, in 1978 Georgia published an ad in Ebony where the image showed black vacationers instead of the usual white ones (cf. figure 3) and the state publications at this point always mentioned the Martin Luther King National Historical site of Atlanta, one of the most beloved must-see for many black visitors. The archive of Georgia, moreover, holds a promotional photo of Fort Frederica, dated around 1975/1976. The photo is very interesting, as it shows three reenactors: a white man along with a black and a white woman, gun in their hands, ready to defend the fort from the Spanish attack. The message is clear: the colonial (and American) spirit resides both in the whites and in the blacks20. Moreover, some rare photos of African Americans began to appear on official booklets both as evidence of “local people” and as tourists (which is the most interesting aspect) in each of the four states.
Figure 3
Picture perfect, ad in Ebony, January 1979, p. 34.
- 21 Alabama’s Black Heritage: A Tour of Historic Sites, in ADAH, SG014284, Tourism and Travel, Communic (...)
- 22 “Information sought for black tour guide”, Jackson Daily News, May 7, 1984, p. C1
30Then, just a few years later, in 1983, Alabama became the first state in the country to publish a tour guide dedicated exclusively to the black heritage21. It was the first in the country. In Mississippi this process appears to be slightly slower, and the preparatory work for a similar guide began only the following year, in 198422. Other Southern states would follow. Again, it’s not by coincidence that Alabama and Mississippi, probably the states with the worst reputation in the entire Union, were the ones who pioneered the way in the publication of guides for African Americans as a way to improve the overall perception.
31Something different, however, related to the South tarnished image, happened regarding the presence of the Native Indian theme in the advertising. Actually, the Native theme was given much more space and attention than that (very little) generally dedicated to black culture. The Native culture was assimilated by state promotion as an integral part of local history and tradition, mostly avoiding the kitsch and stereotypical representation of the past, but instead showing a concrete attention to the culture of the local tribes. As highlighted by Denise Bates, between the 1970s and the 1980s, an evolving Southern identity expressed a renewed interest in indigenous history and symbols because “Indians and Indian-themed histories offered Southern states an opportunity to redeem their tarnished images as the most racist and violent states in the nation” (2012, p. 143).
- 23 A portrait of our historic past. This is Georgia, advertisement, 1975-1976, GAR, RCB 27169, Industr (...)
32And so, we find large full-page photographs of local tribes on both the main booklets of Mississippi and Alabama. The Alabama the Beautiful booklet guide (1981) opened with a large photo of a local Native dancing in the local pow-wow. That was the first image that a potential reader would have seen looking through the guide. Each of the four states, however, dedicate some attention to this theme. In Come See S.C. (1980-1981), for example, the Indian lore was mentioned very often, and Native language names and words were also used to arouse fascination in the reader. Even more explicitly, one Georgia ad dedicated to the great historical figures of the state showed five actors dressed as historical figures. One of them was Sequoyah, the Native who invented the Cherokee alphabet. The Native polymath thus became one of the “state historical characters”23.
- 24 Already in 1941, for example, Alabama published ads dedicated to the “Romantic and Progressive Alab (...)
- 25 Honeymoon South, Travel South, 1981 in ADAH, Tourism and Travel Administrative files, 1940-2010, SG (...)
- 26 Alabama Has it All, 1975/1976, script, in ADAH, Tourism and Travel, Communications Division, Progra (...)
33Another important aspect to take into consideration was the idea of modernity proposed by the four states. The concept of modernity is here twofold: on the one hand, there was a promotional speech about the advanced infrastructures the states made available to visitors. On the other hand, state tourism advertising also boasted the ability to offer fashionable and up-to-date attractions. The idea that visiting Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina was to experience both “the Old and the New” seems almost a cliché, which comes back often in the promotional material of that period. It was nothing new, because vague hints to progress and modernity can also be found in Southern advertising from the 1950s and 1960s (Buchanan, 2012)24. By the mid-1970s, however, these allusions appeared completely assimilated in the promotional discourse and enriched with a new focus on urban fashion modernity. Departing from the classic image of the rural South, in fact, importance was now also given to city nightlife and fancy accommodation. It was an idea shared with the regional promotion produced by the Travel South organization: “Nowhere is the South more vital than in her cities - they capture a South in the fast lane. Nightlife thrives after daytime’s progressive beat…”25. An interesting and complete refusal of the classical assumption that South equals rural setting. Atlanta, of course, was promoted by the Georgia tourism office as the great international metropolis full of everything. The booklet Alabama Has it All told its readers about the exciting Birmingham nightlife and fancy hotels and restaurants 26, while South Carolina had no problem at all in boasting its trendy hotels and resorts provided with every comfort.
- 27 Mississippi, it’s like coming home, 1978, Mississippi Agricultural and Industrial Board, Department (...)
34Mississippi, on the other hand, had more trouble keeping up on this theme. The booklet It’s Like Coming Home (1978) clearly shows that Mississippi had fewer arrows to its bow regarding “modernity”. Indeed, the booklet presented a number of alleged “modern attractions” that are not really tourist attractions: “Look everywhere for new thinking in agriculture and industry, the arts and sciences”, or “Smaller operations like processing plants for locally-grown crops are found throughout the state”. But even Mississippi knew it had to present itself as “exuberant, growing, vital…a state sure of its present and future”27.
35It should be said that if it is true that the overall image projected by these four states through their advertising already appeared fragmented and multifaceted, it is also true that the classical themes (Old South, the Confederacy halo and the antebellum charm) remained important in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia (not so in South Carolina). The classic South was no longer the core of the promotional narrative, but was, nonetheless, still a part of the new whole. The way the mythic Old South was described and offered to the potential visitor was often overemphatic and celebrative, just as in the older times.
- 28 Letter from George Williams to Carol Ann, 1978, in MDAH, Box 11533, Row 20, Bay 26, shelf 1, S1663, (...)
- 29 Tourism in historic Columbus, 1977 in MDAH, Department of Tourism Correspondence, B2/R170/B5/S2, S (...)
- 30 The term “War Between the States” to call the Civil War has historically been used by Southern part (...)
- 31 In no case, however, was the War linked to slavery. The Civil War was something that happened at so (...)
36Some breaches in the obsessive presence of the classic South in the promotional discourse, however, could be observed in the late 1970s advertisements. Even Mississippi showed evidence of a new approach. The Civil War itself appears to be in a moment of transition from its traditional role of pivotal, mythical event to be just part of a new variety. The director of the Mississippi tourism office, for example, complained in 1978 about “too much concentration on the Civil War on the sales pitch”.28 A report by the association Historic Columbus, Inc. of Columbus, Mississippi, stated in 1977 that since the state was nationally recognized primarily for its antebellum homes, those were to be the focal point of state advertising29. This shows a lively debate within the tourism industry of Mississippi: on the one hand a local actor, as it was the association of Historic Columbus (a town with several antebellum homes) that would have wanted a state advertising more focused on that theme; on the other hand, the state Tourism Department who evidently wanted to create an image less obsessively dedicated to the antebellum lore. In Alabama, the new promotional campaign Alabama the Beautiful, launched in 1979 under Governor Forrest James, removed the name “War Between the States” from all of its ads and brochure, adopting only “Civil War”30. Generally speaking, in the states’ official booklets, the Civil War was treated with a cautious impartiality, which left little space overall for blatant incursions into the Lost Cause narrative31. Behind this choice, it is not hard to imagine a precise will of the state governments, eager to polish the image of their states and, therefore, revitalize their economic opportunities to fit into the Sunbelt South expansion.
- 32 “Rebel Soldiers charge north”, Pensacola News Journal, September 25, 1981, p. C-1.
37Today, one of the themes obsessively proposed by the Southern tourist advertising is food. In the official guides readers will find photographs of food and food information on practically every page. In the second half of the 1970s, on the other hand, this theme appears to be absent, except for sporadic references to fish food in the gulf area. And yet, even in this case it seems that everything is to be traced back to that period. In 1981 the Alabama Tourism Director, about to leave for Washington for a meeting in which she would have promoted the South along with other representatives of Travel South, told the press that, “We feel one of the big attractions of the South is its food”32. That would have been one of the main themes exploited at the meeting in Washington, and undoubtedly from her words it is easy to understand that it was almost a novelty, a new theme within the advertising strategy. It is, therefore, likely that today’s obsession with food in Southern promotions started with that strategy conceived by Southern tourism professionals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The idea of food as a distinctive feature of the Southerness was also explored in those years from a cultural point of view when John Egerton undertook his journey through the South in search of the link between food and local culture, a journey that ended three years later in the publication of the great classic Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History (1987). And it’s no coincidence that Rick McDaniel notices a flashback of the South for his regional cuisine in the late 1970s (2011).
38Other ideas emerged in those years that will remain vital for the Southern states. Among all, I would say, the willingness to present themselves as the “real destinations” for civil rights tourism, an idea pioneered by Alabama in the late 1970s, or the subdivision into geographical or thematic tourist regions, or the use of the Native theme. More importantly, however, is the very idea of the variety trope that appears in direct continuity with the processes highlighted in the late 1970s. This process of the fragmentation of the image of the South was undoubtedly caused both by some profound motives, linked to the role of the Southern region in the American culture, and also by a series of contingent factors, specific to the 1970s and to the tourism industry, which allowed and even accelerated the process. Moreover, the political administrations of the Deep South states were well aware of the need to project a new modern appearance: still seductive but less wild and untamed than before. Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina were to be destinations for tourists of all kinds (with black tourism now a major force in the market), but also for conventions, corporate retreats, possibly new industries. Thus, something modern, even stylish, and maybe with an international and worldly flavor had to be added to the overall destination image of the four states.
39From that moment on, a path was laid and the face that the South showed the tourists in the following forty years became even more fragmented, with the addition of several new elements. This is also because tourism has continued to change consistently: as travel activities vary and increase in number and tourists become more demanding, advertisements in turn need to become more sophisticated and complex to properly influence readers’ choice (Krippendorf, 1987). Hence, the variety trope. Even from a cultural point of view, not strictly related to tourism, the South became increasingly elusive as a distinct entity, increasingly complex to delimit and define.
40The Old South, however, even if tamed and somehow kinder, remained there, ready to emerge in the American imagination, if necessary. McPherson, for example, noted a resurgence of the American passion for the classic Southern myths in the late 1980s as a form of reaction to the economic pressures of late capitalism, and as a sign of the rollback of the gains of the Civil Rights movement (2003, p. 18). In this sense, we should remember that the wild and romantic antebellum South is an all-American icon, and by no means a mere reactionary gaze of the South over its own past.
41Therefore, we must also look at the Southern tourist image as a reflection of the wishes and expectations of the United States as a whole. During the 1970s and the 1980s, American culture showed great interest in the South, mostly in its links with the ideas of tradition, sense of community, family values, and as a reaction to the turbulence and disillusions of the present moment (McPherson, 2003; Kirby, 1978). Indeed, the American culture wanted to embrace some peculiar traits of the South. Therefore, a tamed and more amicable version of the classic South perfectly fit into the context of the period. And a tamed version of the classic South was precisely what tourism offices offered to potential visitors, through the image of a region where modernity and a new social status quo intertwined with a simulated nostalgic look at the past, keeping the Old South alive for tourists, albeit perhaps even in a more kitsch version than before.
Flux RSS-small120.jpg)
