It was only a few years after marrying tobacco magnate R.J.Reynolds that young Katharine Smith Reynolds began to plan a new home for her family. Not many young women of the day found themselves with almost unlimited wealth to construct their dream home, but Katharine"s sense of purpose for her vast resources was even more unusual. She envisioned the founding of a model community that would emphasize health, modern technology, mixed-crop scientific farming, education, and rural beauty. To realize this dream, she drew on the liveliest and most progressive ideas of her era. Catherine Howett begins her analysis of Katharine"s unusual achievement with her childhood in Mount Airy, North Carolina, and the defining southern values that framed her experiences there. Howett follows Katharine through her transformative education at the state Normal School, founded and run by Charles Duncan McIver and his ardently feminist wife, Lula. The values instilled in Katharine during these early...