| Freedom: Volume 2, Series 1: The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor: The Upper South: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861 18 Contributor(s): Berlin, Ira (Editor), Miller, Steven F. (Editor), Reidy, Joseph P. (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1107405793 ISBN-13: 9781107405790 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $55.09 Product Type: Paperback Published: July 2012 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - 19th Century - History | United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877) |
| Dewey: 973.711 |
| Series: Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation |
| Physical Information: 1.8" H x 6" W x 9" (2.59 lbs) 816 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Topical - Civil War |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: As slavery collapsed during the American Civil War, former slaves struggled to secure their liberty, reconstitute their families, and create the institutions befitting a free people. This volume of Freedom presents a documentary history of the emergence of free-labor relations in different settings in the Upper South. At first, most federal officials hoped to mobilize former slaves without either transforming the conflict into a war of liberation or assuming responsibility for the young, the old, or others not suitable for military employment. But as the Union army came to depend on black workers and as the number of destitute freedpeople mounted, authorities at all levels grappled with intertwined questions of freedom, labor and welfare. Meanwhile, the former slaves pursued their own objectives, working within the constraints imposed by the war and Union occupation to fashion new lives as free people. The Civil War sealed the fate of slavery only to open a contest over the meaning of freedom. This volume of Freedom documents an important chapter in that contest. |