The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861 |
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| Author:
| Wells, Jonathan Daniel |
| ISBN: | 978-0-8078-2882-3 |
| Publication Date: | Sep 2004 |
| Publisher: | University of North Carolina Press
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| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | AUD $160.00 |
Book Description:
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Wells contests the popular idea that the Old South was a region of essentially two classes (planters and slaves) until after the Civil War. He argues instead that by the 1850s the South had a burgeoning middle class very similar to that in the North. It was the South's attraction to industrial slavery, and the potential capital to be made with it, that led the regions into competition, and ultimately to war.
Wells contests the popular idea that the Old South was a region of essentially two classes (planters and slaves) until after the Civil War. He argues instead that by the 1850s the South had a burgeoning middle class very similar to that in the North. It was the South's attraction to industrial slavery, and the potential capital to be made with it, that led the regions into competition, and ultimately to war.