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{ "item_title" : "Masterless Men", "item_author" : [" Keri Leigh Merritt "], "item_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.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/31/663/543/1316635430_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "39.99", "online_price" : "39.99", "our_price" : "39.99", "club_price" : "39.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }
Masterless Men|Keri Leigh Merritt
Masterless Men : Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South
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Overview

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.

Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781316635438
  • ISBN-10: 1316635430
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press
  • Publish Date: December 2017
  • Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Page Count: 371

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