Donald Davidson | |
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 Donald Davidson in 1956 | |
| Born | Donald Grady Davidson August 8, 1893 |
| Died | April 25, 1968 (aged 74) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Resting place | Calvary Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Vanderbilt University |
| Occupations | Poet, college professor |
| Spouse | Theresa Sherrer |
| Children | 1 daughter |
Donald Grady Davidson (August 8, 1893 – April 25, 1968) was an American poet, essayist, social and literary critic, and author. An English professor atVanderbilt University from 1920 to 1965, he was a founding member of theFugitives and the overlapping groupSouthern Agrarians, two literary groups based inNashville, Tennessee. He was a supporter ofsegregation in the United States.
Davidson was born on August 8, 1893, inCampbellsville, Tennessee.[1] His father, William Bluford Davidson, was "a teacher and school administrator," and his mother, Elma Wells, was "a music and elocution teacher."[1] He had two brothers, John and William. Davidson received a classical education at Branham and Hughes Military Academy, apreparatory school inSpring Hill, Tennessee. He earned both his bachelor's (1917) and master's (1922) degrees atVanderbilt University.[1] He served as a lieutenant in theUnited States Army duringWorld War I.[2]
Davidson was an English professor at Vanderbilt University from 1920 to 1965.[2] While at Vanderbilt, Davidson became associated with theFugitives, who met to read and criticize each other's verse.[2] Later, they founded a review of the same name, which launched the literary careers of the poets and criticsJohn Crowe Ransom,Allen Tate andRobert Penn Warren,[2] the poetLaura Riding, and the poet and psychiatristMerrill Moore. He enjoyed, for a time, a national reputation as a poet, in part due to the inclusion of his dramatic monologue, "Lee in the Mountains",[2] in early editions of the influential college literature textbookUnderstanding Poetry. Its editors were his former students Warren andCleanth Brooks. From 1923 to 1930, Davidson reviewed books and edited theNashville Tennessean book page, where he assessed more than 370 books.
Around 1930, Davidson began his association with theSouthern Agrarians.[2] He was chiefly responsible for the decision of the group to write essays, published as theAgrarian manifestoI'll Take My Stand. Davidson shared the Agrarians' distaste for industrial capitalism and its destructive effect on American culture. Davidson's romantic outlook, however, led him to interpret Agrarianism as a straightforward politics of identity. "American" identity had become "characterless and synthetic," he argued in 1933. He encouraged Americans to embrace their identities as "Rebels, Yankees, Westerners, New Englanders or what you will, bound by ties more generous than abstract institutions can express, rather than citizens of an Americanized nowhere, without family, kin, or home." He was in favor ofsegregation[how?].[3]: xxxii
In 1931, Davidson began a long association withMiddlebury College'sBreadloaf School of English. He bought a house inVermont where he did much of his later writing. He taught at the Breadloaf School every summer until his death. In 1939 his textbook,American Composition and Rhetoric, was published and widely adopted for English courses in American universities.[4]: 227
Perhaps most widely read of his writings today is Davidson's two-volume historyThe Tennessee (1946 and 1948), in theRivers of America series. The second volume is notable for its critique of theTennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the impact of its dam-building andeminent domain land seizure on local society. Although originally a supporter of theNew Deal, he was suspicious that the TVA was a plot of northern business interests to exploit and dominate the South. He denounced the TVA as an instrument of political collectivism, run by outsiders, designed to destroy the South's traditions.[5]
In 1952 his ballad opera,Singin' Billy, with music byCharles F. Bryan, was performed at the Vanderbilt Theater. His work as book page editor for theNashville Tennessean was commemorated in 1963 with the publication ofThe Spyglass: Views and Reviews, 1924–1930. A comprehensive collection of his poetry,Poems: 1922–61, was published in 1966.[6]
Davidson was a proponent ofracial segregation and racial inequality. In an essay defending segregation inThe Sewanee Review, described by historianPaul V. Murphy as his major work on the topic, he wrote: "The white South denies the Negro equal participation in society, not only because it does not consider him entitled to equality, but because it is certain that social mingling would lead to biological mingling, which it is determined to prevent, both for any given contemporary generation and for its posterity."[7]: 106–107
Davidson supported the 1948 presidential candidacy ofStrom Thurmond, who was running as aDixiecrat in opposition to PresidentHarry Truman's civil rights proposals.[7]: 202 He joined theTennessee States' Rights Committee in 1950, and became the chairman of theTennessee Federation for Constitutional Government (TFCG), the local analogue of theWhite Citizens Councils, at its founding in 1955.[7]: 202 Under his leadership, TFCG led the failed effort to oppose the desegregation of Nashville's public schools.[7]: 202 Davidson warned that if black students attended, "The capital city of Tennessee would become an uneasy island of integration surrounded by a tumultuous ocean of protest and discontent."[8]
Davidson marriedTheresa Sherrer, a legal scholar and artist, in June 1918.[9]: 28 They had a daughter[who?], who marriedEric Bell, Jr.[2] They resided at 410 Fairfax Avenue in Nashville.[2] He died on April 25, 1968, at age 74, at his home.[2]
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