In 1920 a group of writers gathered at the home of playwright Sidney Hirsch in Nashville for bi-weekly sessions of reading and dissecting each other’s prose and poetry. It was the beginning of an outpouring of creativity from a group that would try to defend and restore the traditional Southern way of life against the rising tide of industrialism and the philosophy of progress. The group became known as the Southern Agrarians.
Two years later they launched a literary magazine called The Fugitive (1922-25) which, though short-lived, would become one of the most noteworthy literary landmarks in American history. The group was led by Vanderbilt professor and poet John Crowe Ransom. Other members included Donald Davidson, also a Vanderbilt professor, and some talented undergraduates, among them Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren. These four men would in a few years become the nucleus of the Agrarians, sometimes known as the Twelve Southerners or Fugitive-Agrarians. In addition to the aforementioned, the Twelve included Andrew Nelson Lytle (novelist and essayist), Frank Lawrence Owsley (historian), Stark Young (novelist and playwright), John Gould Fletcher (poet and art critic), Henry Blue Kline (essayist), Lyle H. Lanier (psychologist), Herman Clarence Nixon (political scientist), and John Donald Wade (biographer). Later they would be joined by Cleanth Brooks and Richard Weaver.
