An in-depth examination of the economic and social transition from
slavery to capitalism during Reconstruction
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.
