Book Review: This Southern Metropolis: Life in Antebellum Mobile
This Southern Metropolis: Life in Antebellum Mobile. By Mike Bunn. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2024. Softcover, 162 pp. $27.95.
Reviewed by Patrick Kelly-Fischer
War changes societies, and if we want to understand how the Civil War changed Southern society, we need to study the antebellum era as well as the war itself. Mike Bunn gives readers an excellent opportunity to do just that in This Southern Metropolis: Life in Antebellum Mobile, which explores the pre-war history, society and economy of what would become the Confederacy’s fourth largest city.
Bunn, who in his role as the director of Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama, the author of a previous book on the history of the region, and an active member of several regional and state historical organizations, brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to telling the story of Mobile’s interesting history.
Mobile experienced possession, and thus government, in succession by the French, Spanish, and British, before its eventual annexation by the United States in 1813. That revolving door of nationalities is reminiscent of New Orleans, but unlike the Crescent City, during the Civil War Mobile remained in Confederate hands until virtually the end of the war. However, much like New Orleans in the antebellum years, Mobile’s unusual history was reflected in its diverse population, including a significant number of immigrants, free Blacks, and Creoles that was uncommon in most other parts of the pre-war South.
Founded at the mouth of significant north and south running river systems, and at the head of a large bay that opens on to the Gulf of Mexico, Mobile was one of the largest cotton ports in the country. The centrality of cotton to virtually every aspect of life in Mobile is a recurring theme through This Southern Metropolis. Bunn notes that, “Historians who have studied Mobile’s antebellum cotton trade have determined that the fiber comprised as much as 99 percent of the goods exported from the port in any given year, as cotton became the single driving force of the city’s economy and the long commercial activity around which everything in the city seemed to turn.” (59)
Going hand in hand with the importance of cotton is slavery’s significant role in Mobile. Rather than focusing on its outlying plantations, This Southern Metropolis offers an opportunity to delve into the experience of enslaved persons living in Mobile’s urban setting, as well learning about the city’s participation in the slave trade. Bunn does a particularly good job of parsing written accounts through the lens of what period writers may be omitting or taking for granted.
Structured thematically, Bunn devotes the book’s chapters to specific topics such as “Entertainment and Celebrations,” “People and Lifestyle,” and “A Place for Business,” rather than arranging the work chronologically. The afterword focuses on landmarks in present-day Mobile that have a connection to the antebellum era.
By the end, Bunn has succeeded in painting a clear, compelling, and engaging picture of antebellum Mobile. While he correctly acknowledges that the history of Mobile has been studied and written about extensively, this particular work’s very reasonable length, its focus on firsthand, written accounts from visitors, and his engaging writing style all combine to make it a very accessible window into a pre-war Southern city.
Good review of an interesting topic, in particular the cultural and ethnic diversity of antebellum Mobile. Did that diversity influence Mobile having a different experience than elsewhere in Alabama during subsequent decades of Jim Crow and then the civil rights movement? Mobile certainly wasn’t as prominent as Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma in terms of civil rights action and violence.