Closed Seasons

The Transformation of Hunting in the Modern South

Julia Brock

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781469681467, 9781469681450
• eBook ISBN: 9781469681474
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In a unique and personal exploration of the game and fish laws in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi from the Progressive Era to the 1930s, Julia Brock offers an innovative history of hunting in the New South. The implementation of conservation laws made significant strides in protecting endangered wildlife species, but it also disrupted traditional hunting practices and livelihoods, particularly among African Americans and poor whites.

Closed Seasons highlights how hunting and fishing regulations were relatively rare in the nineteenth century, but the emerging conservation movement and the rise of a regional “sportsman” identity at the turn of the twentieth century eventually led to the adoption of state-level laws. Once passed, however, these laws, were plagued by obstacles, including insufficient funding and enforcement. Brock traces the dizzying array of factors—propaganda, racial tensions, organizational activism, and federal involvement—that led to effective game and fish laws in the South.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Halftitle Page
• Map
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Game and Fish Laws and the Closing of the Commons
• Chapter 2 Audubon, Alabama, and the Advent of Statewide Game and Fish Commissions in the Progressive Era Deep South
• Chapter 3 Hunting Land, Hunting Labor: Charlie Young and the Growth of the Georgia Winter Hunting Colony
• Chapter 4 Fannye A. Cook, the Federal Government, and the Maturation of Game and Fish Laws in the Deep South
• Afterword The Outdoors Are for Everybody
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index