According to the author, this work is about an industry that made "something from nothing," and I suppose a cynical reviewer could presuppose that this book, in terms of historical and scholarly relevance, does the same. After all, who should care about a business that was ancillary to the "king" of the southern economy, and assuming that it had some importance for a time, was ephemeral in economic significance, to say the least?

But if we carefully examine the production and market statistics presented in Lynette Boney Wrenn's Cinderella of the New South and adhere to the notion that knowledge is complex, seamless in nature, and interrelated, one cannot but come to the conclusion that this work marks a substantial advance in our understanding of the evolution of the New South. Indeed, given the well-worn historiographical paths that exist concerning the American South, the question should be, Why did it take so long for this work to appear?