Weekly newspapers of Montgomery, Giles and Roanoke Counties, the Continental Divide Counties covering the period from 1866 to 1876 are used to assess the lives of southwest Virginians. The newspapers reflect a strong traditional political, economic and social conservatism during a period of economic struggle for small subsistence farmers. In order to better their marketing, the citizens resorted to a variety of internal improvement schemes, but it was not until the unsolicited Republican capital of Philadelphia businessmen invaded that a major railroad link was built. Whereas attempts to channelize the New River failed, efforts to improve municipal waterworks were largely successful. The inhabitants were people of strong moral convictions, as evidenced by their enthusiasm for the temperance movement and their endorsement of the southern Civil War memorial associations. Reluctantly turning from their Jacksonian principles, the Ninth District embraced organized political conservatism through convention politics, in a statewide conservative effort to destroy Radical Republicanism. / M.A.

This study analyzes the impact of eighteenth-century commercialization on the evolution of the English and southern American landed classes with regard to three genteel leadership qualities--education, vocation, and personal characteristics. A simultaneous comparison provides a clearer view of how each adapted, or failed to adapt, to the social and economic change of the period. The analysis demonstrates that the English gentry did not lose a class struggle with the commercial ranks as much as they were overwhelmed by economic changes they could not understand. The southern landed class established an economy based on production of cash crops and thus adapted better to a commercial economy. The work addresses the development of class-consciousness in England and the origins of Virginia's landed class.