For students of southern labor, almost any collection of essays chronic ling workers' experiences below the Mason-Dixon would be welcome. With the exceptions of F. Ray Marshall's in the South and several issues of Southern Exposure published by the Institute for Southern Studies, there are few readily-available resources that reveal the richness and variety of southern labor history. 1 Essays in Southern History, Selected Papers, Southern History Conference, 1976 is a valuable compilation document ing workers' errorts to effect changes in their working and living conditions during the last century.^ Editors Gary M. Fink and Merl E. Reed have included twelve essays from the First Southern History Conferece, basing their selections upon quality and the spirit and character of the 1976 event. In addition to an introduction outlining the origins of the Southern Studies Association, the editors provide short introductory statements summarizing the contents of the articles and brief biographical sketches of their authors. Conference commentators' remarks follow each essay, with two exceptions to be noted elsewhere. Grouped sequentially into six major sections? Southern Knights: Discord and Accommodation; Textiles: The Past and Present; Coal: Industrial Warfare in West Virginia; Oil: Organizing During the Two World Wars; Urban Transportation: Transit Strikes in New Or leans and Atlanta; Labor and Politics: The Southern Experience?the papers illustrate the significance of location and region in the study of the South. Several themes emerge from the essays which suggest broad outlines for explaining the persistent failure of southern workers to form stable and effec tive unions. These themes include racial divisiveness, internecine strife and inept leadership within the house of labor, poverty, and xenophobia. The impact of race is an oft-occuring motif in the essays. Melton A. McLaurin notes in his paper Knights of Labor: Internal Dissensions of the Southern Order, that the ever present racial issue was a contributor to the failure of the organization to achieve internal stability. Employers' efforts to undermine workers' organizing activities by appealing to racial prejudice are