Old South

In the South the Civil War ‘is what AD is elsewhere, they date from it’ (Mark Twain)

• Following defeat of Confederate states in the American Civil War (1861-65) an enduring mythology had formed around the

‘old South’ in its pre-Civil War era: a graceful, civilised society superior to the vulgar, materialistic Northern states

• However, this myth was based upon the enslavement of millions of black Americans as a source of unpaid labour

• Old ‘plantation’ families (land-owning aristocracy) had become rich through slave labour – this way of life was no longer valid, leading to the ‘decay’ of old Southern values

• Following their defeat by the Northern states, the South suffered economically. However, this air of decaying grandeur added to the romantic appeal for many writer including Williams.

• As time moved on, industrialisation continued in the cities. Whilst the plantations continued to decay, urban growth and capitalism flourished in the cities

Cover illustration of Harper's Weekly, September 7, 1861 showing a stereotypical Southern belle

The "Southern belle" archetype is characterized by Southern hospitality, a cultivation of beauty, and a flirtatious yet chaste demeanour.

Women in the Old South had a social and symbolic role, were expected to be passive and chaste. They were considered inferior to men and subject to their protection.

Tennessee Williams saw the South as a broken and damaged place in which the decay was somehow charming. He said:

I write out of love for the South … once a way of life that I am just able to remember – not a society based on money … I write about the South because I think the war between romanticism and the hostility to it is very sharp there.

The play is an example of the “Southern Gothic” – texts set in America’s South with overtones of supernatural or unusual events. The roots of this literature lay perhaps in the fact that the writers knew that they were part of a dying culture - where the dashing and romantic were founded on an economy based on injustice and cruelty.

Up until the 1940s the American South had an agricultural driven economy which allowed for a distinct white upper class.The1940s saw this society change. Industrialisation saw a new working class emerge. A working class from a huge number of different backgrounds. The American Dream!

WWII

Tennessee Williams was working on Streetcar at the end of WW2 but there is very little mention made of the war. Despite the fact that the events of the war had been cataclysmic, they receive only a brief mention in the play.

That said, many writers at the time were concerned with the idea that, whilst great leaps forward were being made in a variety of spheres, man's capacity for evil and destruction also continued to grow.

The United States was emerging as a dominant global power, the world was separating into East and West along the Communist divide and the Cold War was beginning. The notion that people needed to work, to be strong and look after their own interests was growing in society, reflecting the fact that strong nations had been seen to dominate weaker ones during the war. Self-reliance and hard work were regarded as the keys to success

The postwar period was a time of change, as soldiers returned from wartime experiences in Europe and Asia, and refugees and immigrants poured into America. It was a time to question what it meant to be American.

New Orleans, 1947

Situated on a bend of the Mississippi River 100 miles from its mouth, New Orleans has been the chief city of Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s busiest northern port since the early 1700s. Founded by the French, ruled for 40 years by the Spanish and bought by the United States in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans is known for its distinct Creole culture and vibrant history. Significant battles of the War of 1812 and the Civil War were fought over the city. In its last hundred years the key struggles of New Orleans have been social (poverty, racial strife) and natural (hurricanes, floods and slowly sinking land).

During the first half of the 19th century, New Orleans became the United States’ wealthiest and third-largest city. Its port shipped the produce of much of the nation’s interior to the Caribbean, South America and Europe. Thousands of slaves were sold in its markets, but its free black community thrived. Until 1830, the majority of its residents still spoke French.

At the start of the Civil War, New Orleans was the largest city in the Confederacy, but it was only a year until Union troops, having captured its downriver defenses, took the city unopposed. During the Reconstruction era race became a potent political force, as emancipated slaves and free people of color were brought into the political process and, with the 1870s rise of the White League and the Ku Klux Klan, forced back out of it. Although the rise of railroads made shipping on the Mississippi less essential than it had been, New Orleans remained a powerful and influential port.

By 1900, the city’s streetcars were electrified, and New Orleans jazz was born in its clubs and dance halls. The city grew. New pump technology drove the ambitious draining of the low-lying swampland located between the city’s riverside crescent and Lake Pontchartrain. New levees and drainage canals meant that many residents could live below sea level. Hurricanes in 1909, 1915, 1947 and 1965 damaged the city, but never catastrophically.

After World War II, suburbanization and conflicts over school integration drew many white residents out of the city, leaving a core that was increasingly African-American and impoverished. Despite these social changes, the city grew as a tourist attraction, with hundreds of thousands of annual visitors drawn to its Mardi Gras festivities and to the culture that had inspired playwright Tennessee Williams, trumpeter Louis Armstrong and chef Jean Galatoire.

New Orleans has historically differed from other American cities in the South. It was originally a Catholic settlement (unlike most Southern cities, which were Protestant), and consequently typical Southern social distinctions were ignored. Hence, blacks mingle with whites, and members of different ethnic groups play poker and bowl together. Williams’s romanticizing is more evident in his portrayal of New Orleans as a city where upper-class people marry members of the lower class, fights get ugly but are forgotten the next day, and the perpetual bluesy notes of an old piano take the sting out of poverty.

The French Quarter

The French Quarter is one of the oldest part of New Orleans (a port town). Founded as La Nouvelle Orléans in 1718, it was basically made up of the Vieux Carré (Old Square). It’s the only grid layout of the city, planned by French Canadian naval officer Jean Baptiste Bienville. This housed a lot of the workers of the port. As Spanish and English populations rose, the name French Quarter referred to the decidedly French city-planning of this section. But the majority of the buildings were built by the Spanish.

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase transferred the colony to the US. The arrival of 10,000 refugees of the French and Haitian Revolutions and Napoleonic wars added to the culture of the space. The 1815 Battle of New Orleans, won by Andrew Jackson (future president) fixed loyalty of the people to America. “The French Quarter’s golden era followed as cotton, sugar, and steamboats poured into the city. American, Irish, German, African, and "Foreign French” immigrants swelled the population, creating a heterogenous matrix of culture, language, religion, and cuisine.“

The tug of war between reform and machine happened during Civil War and Reconstruction. Creoles moved to Esplanade and later Uptown, and famine-driven Sicilian immigrants slept in the grand spaces of French Quarter mansions of the 1890s. 1900 saw the birth of jazz music. By 1920, writers flocked to the French Quarter due to the urbanism, quaint surroundings, and creative stimulus.

However, it is not to be romanticized. The French Quarter was full of sounds, smells, and oppressive heat. After WWII, it was turned into a tourist district. But during and before the play’s time, the French Quarter was an urban slum.

The Louisville and Nashville Passenger Station was a former train station of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana. The station was located at the foot of Canal Street, and provided service to New Orleans from Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile. By the 1940s, six passenger trains arrived daily on the terminal's three tracks.

The station was demolished in early 1954 after all passenger service was relocated to the new Union Passenger Terminal.

‘Blue Piano’

1920s – height of New Orleans style jazz

1930s – declines as Swing music popularized

1940s – resurgence of Jazz

1930s/40s – Blues becomes more popular

New Orleans blues was largely piano based, with some guitars

Elysian Fields

Definition: a street in New Orleans. It is the only one that goes from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain. In Greek mythology, Elysian Fields were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous