| Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South Contributor(s): Merritt, Keri Leigh (Author) |
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ISBN: 110718424X ISBN-13: 9781107184244 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $67.44 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: May 2017 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) - History | United States - 19th Century - Social Science | Poverty & Homelessness |
| Dewey: 975.03 |
| LCCN: 2017003313 |
| Series: Cambridge Studies on the American South |
| Physical Information: 1.03" H x 6.31" W x 9.43" (1.42 lbs) 370 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1800-1850 - Cultural Region - South |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Keri Leigh Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. |
Contributor Bio(s): Merritt, Keri Leigh: - Keri Leigh Merritt is an independent scholar in Atlanta, Georgia. Merritt's work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards, and she is a co-editor of a volume on American South labor history. |