Full Description
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
List of Illustrations vii List of Tables ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xv 1. Institutional Transformation and Uncertainty 1 2. Constructing a Free Labor Market 21 3. Status Attainment among Emancipated Slaves 50 4. Class Structure in the Old and New South 75 5. The Demise of the Plantation 103 6. Credit and Trade in the New South 131 7. Paths to Development 156 8. Emancipation in Comparative Perspective 181 Appendix A. Data Sources and Sampling 195 Appendix B. Idiosyncrasy 203 Notes 209 References 253 Index 277
