Between slavery and capitalism : the legacy of emancipation in the American South / Martin Ruef.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ruef, Martin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Enslaved persons--Emancipation--Economic aspects.

Slave trade.

Economic history.

Capitalism--Social aspects.

Capitalism.

Capitalism--Social aspects--History.

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

Slave trade--Southern States--History.

Enslaved persons--Emancipation--Economic aspects--Southern States.

Enslaved persons.

Southern States.

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

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 p.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

At the center of the upheavals brought by emancipation in the American South was the economic and social transition from slavery to modern capitalism. In Between Slavery and Capitalism, Martin Ruef examines how this institutional change affected individuals, organizations, and communities in the late nineteenth century, as blacks and whites alike learned to navigate the shoals between two different economic worlds. Analyzing trajectories among average Southerners, this is perhaps the most extensive sociological treatment of the transition from slavery since W.E.B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction in America. In the aftermath of the Civil War, uncertainty was a pervasive feature of life in the South, affecting the economic behavior and social status of former slaves, Freedmen's Bureau agents, planters, merchants, and politicians, among others. Emancipation brought fundamental questions: How should emancipated slaves be reimbursed in wage contracts? What occupations and class positions would be open to blacks and whites? What forms of agricultural tenure could persist? And what paths to economic growth would be viable? To understand the escalating uncertainty of the postbellum era, Ruef draws on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, including several thousand interviews with former slaves, letters, labor contracts, memoirs, survey responses, census records, and credit reports. Through a resolutely comparative approach, Between Slavery and Capitalism identifies profound changes between the economic institutions of the Old and New South and sheds new light on how the legacy of emancipation continues to affect political discourse and race and class relations today.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Institutional Transformation and Uncertainty

2. Constructing a Free Labor Market

3. Status Attainment among Emancipated Slaves

4. Class Structure in the Old and New South

5. The Demise of the Plantation

6. Credit and Trade in the New South

7. Credit and Trade in the New South

8. Emancipation in Comparative Perspective

Appendix A. Data Sources and Sampling

Appendix B. Idiosyncrasy

Notes

References

Index

Credits:

Jacket Photograph: View of a woman washing clothes, from the Federal Writers' Project, ca. 1937–1938. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USz62-125152.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Pilot project,eBook available to selected US libraries only

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-275) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691173597

0691173591

9781400852642

1400852641

OCLC:

884645764