Southern scoundrels : grifters and graft in the nineteenth century / edited by Jeff Forret and Bruce E. Baker.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Forret, Jeff, 1972- editor.

Baker, Bruce E., 1971- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Swindlers and swindling--Southern States--History--19th century.

Swindlers and swindling.

Capitalism--Southern States--History--19th century.

Capitalism.

Economic history.

Economic conditions.

History.

Southern States--Economic conditions--19th century.

Southern States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

vi, 247 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2021]

Summary:

"The history of capitalist development in the United States is long, uneven, and overwhelmingly focused on the northern states. Recent years have witnessed an explosion of works on capitalism in the South. Still, these have primarily been macroeconomic studies emphasizing the role of the cotton economy in global trading networks. Less understood is how capitalism took root and functioned in all its variated facets in the nineteenth-century South. This volume explores the lesser-known aspects of those processes: the shady and unscrupulous peddlers, preachers, slave traders, war profiteers, thieves, and marginal men who seized the available opportunities to get ahead and made the southern economy what it was. The ten chapters of 'Southern Scoundrels: Grifters and Graft in the Nineteenth-Century South' eschew dry economic theory in favor of narrative storytelling as engaging and seductive as the set of shifty and corrupt characters under examination. The essays cover the chronological sweep of nineteenth-century southern history, from the antebellum era, through the tumultuous and chaotic Civil War years, and into Reconstruction and beyond. The geographic coverage is equally broad, with chapters encompassing the Chesapeake, South Carolina, the Lower Mississippi Valley, Texas, Missouri, and Appalachia. 'Southern Scoundrels' offers a series of social histories indicative of the nineteenth-century southern economy and the changes wrought by the capitalist transformation. Tracing that story through the kinds of smarmy individuals who made it happen makes it accessible to a wide range of readers interested in the region's history"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction / Jeff Forret and Bruce E. Baker

Preachers and Peddlers: Credit and Belief in the Flush Times / John Lindbeck

A Gentleman and a Scoundrel? Alexander McDonald, Financial Reputation, and Slavery's Capitalism / Alexandra J. Finley

"How Deeply They Weed into the Pockets": Slave Traders, Bank Speculators, and the Anatomy of a Chesapeake Wildcat, 1840-1843 / Jeff Forret

Bernard Kendig: Orchestrating Fraud in the Market and the Courtroom / Maria R. Montalvo

William A. Britton v. Benjamin F. Butler: Occupied New Orleans, Confiscation, and the Disruption of the Cotton Trade in Wartime Natchez / Jeff Strickland

Devils at the Doorstep: Confederate Judges, Masters of Sequestration / Rodney J. Steward

"Irresistibly Impelled toward Illegal Appropriation": The Civil War Schemes of William G. Cheeney / Jimmy L. Bryan, Jr.

Das Kapital on Tchoupitoulas Street: The Marketing of Stolen Goods and the Reserve Army of Labor in Reconstruction-Era New Orleans / Bruce E. Baker

The Violent Lives of William Faucett / Elaine S. Frantz

Eureka! Law and Order for Sale in Gilded Age Appalachia / T. R. C. Hutton.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Southern scoundrels

ISBN:

9780807172193

0807172197

OCLC:

1183397816

Publisher Number:

99987451177