SOURCE: "The New South: The Past Recaptured," in Nineteenth-Century Literature, University Press of Kentucky, 1980, pp. 89-111.

Ridgely focuses on Page's attempts through literature and lectures to prove the rightness of the Southern Cause.

Page's forte, like [Joel Chandler] Harris's, was the tale told in Negro dialect. However embarrassing (and sometimes difficult to comprehend) such a rendering of dialog may seem to the reader of today, it was vital in giving the ring of "reality" to his favorite characters, the faithful black servants who knew—and would not give up—their places. The wide success of the book suggests how easily his readers could accept the doctrine of paternalism—though, in fact, ex-slaveholders had been shocked by the "uppity" attitudes of their former property.

The opening story of In Ole Virginia, one of the most popular he ever composed, is an epitome of Page's world—and his appeal. The...