Securing the bare necessities of life was no longer a difficult problem for every one.

Men began to find pleasure in activity rather than in mere passivity or obstruction.
Somehow, somewhere, sometime, a new hopefulness was born and this new spirit--evidence of new life--became embodied in "the New South." The expression is said to have been used first by General Adam Badeau when stationed in South Carolina, but the New South of which he spoke was not the New South as it is understood today.

Many others have used the term loosely to signify any change in economic or social conditions which they had discovered.

The first man to use the expression in a way which sent it vibrating through the whole nation was Henry W.Grady, the gifted editor of the _Atlanta Constitution_.

In a speech made in 1886 by invitation of the New England Society of New York City, he took for his theme "the New South" and delivered an oration which, judged by its effects, had some of the marks of greatness.