Wilbur Joseph "Jack" Cash (May 2, 1900 – July 1, 1941) was an American journalist known for writing The Mind of the South (1941), a controversial and influential interpretation of the character and history of the American South. A protégé of H. L. Mencken and Alfred A. and Blanche Knopf, Cash suffered throughout his life from depression. He died by hanging himself shortly after the publication of the book. Life and career Early life and education Cash, known as "Jack" throughout his life, was born as "Joseph Wilbur Cash" – he later reversed the order of his given names, and normally used only the initials – and grew up in the mill village of Gaffney, South Carolina. His parents were Nanette Lutitia Hamrick, the organist at the local Baptist church who had previously taught music in the public school, and John William Cash, who managed the company store at the Limestone Mills. His ancestry was German and Scots-Irish. He had three brothers and a sister, of whom he was the eldest. He was educated at the local public school until he was 12, when his family moved to Boiling Springs, North Carolina, 14 miles away across the state border – his mother's home town – so that his father could become a partner with Cash's maternal grandfather in a general store there. Cash attended Boiling Springs High School, a Baptist academy, where his high school classmates called him "Sleepy", due to his tendency to daydream. When he graduated from high school in April 1917, he gave the commencement address. Cash worked at his grandfather's farm in the summers. Although Cash's mother was a pious Baptist, and he adored her, Cash himself eventually turned away from religion. His relationship with his father was distant and somewhat fraught, as the rigidly conventional man considered his son to be a deviant for not following the religious and social customs of the time. Once when Cash was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, his father sent him back in order to teach him to behave like a man. John William Cash would later say that he did not recognize until much later how bright his son was, although his wife did. "I never did teach [him] that he was smart," he said, "I never did want him to think that he was smarter than most other people." In 1917 to 1918, Cash did odd