Upon the altar of work : child labor and the rise of a new American sectionalism / Betsy Wood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wood, Betsy, author.

Series:

Working class in American history.

Illinois scholarship online.

The working class in American history

Illinois scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Child labor--Political aspects--United States--History.

Child labor.

Sectionalism (United States)--History.

Sectionalism (United States).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 243 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2021.

Summary:

Rooted in the crisis over slavery, disagreements about child labor broke down along sectional lines between the North and South. For decades after emancipation, the child labor issue shaped how Northerners and Southerners defined fundamental concepts of American life such as work, freedom, the market, and the state. Betsy Wood examines the evolution of ideas about child labor and the on-the-ground politics of the issue against the backdrop of broad developments related to slavery and emancipation, industrial capitalism, moral and social reform, and American politics and religion. Wood explains how the decades-long battle over child labor created enduring political and ideological divisions within capitalist society that divided the gatekeepers of modernity from the cultural warriors who opposed them.

Contents:

Fields of free labor : child rescue and sectional crisis

Testing ground of freedom : child labor in the age of Emancipation

Seeds of a new sectionalism : Southern origins of child labor reform

Child labor abolitionists : a northern progressive vision

Cultural warriors : a Southern capitalist vision.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on April 30, 2021).

Previously issued in print: 2020.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780252043444

0252043448