European University Institute Library

One kind of freedom, the economic consequences of emancipation, Roger L. Ransom, Richard Sutch

eng

index present

non fiction

One kind of freedom

electronic resource

dictionaries

862115957

Roger L. Ransom, Richard Sutch

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

the economic consequences of emancipation

This edition of the economic history classic One Kind of Freedom reprints the entire text of the first edition together with an introduction by the authors and an extensive bibliography of works in Southern history published since the appearance of the first edition. The book examines the economic institutions that replaced slavery and the conditions under which ex-slaves were allowed to enter the economic life of the United States following the Civil War. The authors contend that although the kind of freedom permitted to black Americans allowed substantial increases in their economic welfare, it effectively curtailed further black advancement and retarded Southern economic development. Quantitative data are used to describe the historical setting but also shape the authors' economic analysis and test the appropriateness of their interpretations. Ransom and Sutch's revised findings enrich the picture of the era and offer directions for future research.--, Provided by publisher

Ch. 1. What did freedom mean? -- Ch. 2. The legacy of slavery -- Ch. 3. The myth of the prostrate South -- Ch. 4. The demise of the plantation -- Ch. 5. Agricultural reconstruction -- Ch. 6. Financial reconstruction -- Ch. 7. The emergence of the merchants' territorial monopoly -- Ch. 8. The trap of debt peonage -- Ch. 9. The roots of southern poverty -- App. A. Construction of income and welfare estimates: 1859-1899 -- App. B. Occupational distribution of southern blacks: 1860, 1870, 1890 -- App. C. Estimates of labor supplied by slave and free labor -- App. D. Calculation of interest charged for credit implicit in the dual-price system -- App. E. Calculation of food residuals on southern farms: 1880 -- App. F. Estimates of per capita gross crop output: 1859-1908 -- App. G. Descriptions of major collections of data gathered by the Southern Economic History Project -- A Bibliography of Literature on the South after 1977