Masters of the Big House: Elite Slaveholders of the Mid-Nineteenth Century South
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.95 (858 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0807128821 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 521 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 0000-00-00 |
| Language | : | English |
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About the Author?
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The identification and tabulation in every slaveholding state of these lords of economic, social, and political influence reveals a highly learned class of men who set the tone for southern society while also involving themselves in the wider world of capitalism. William Kauffman Scarborough has produced a work of incomparable scope and depth, offering the challenge to see afresh one of the most powerful groups in American history -- the wealthiest southern planters who owned 250 or more slaves in the census years of 1850 and 1860. Scarborough examines the demographics of elite families, the educational philosophy and religiosity of the nabobs, gender relations in the Big House, slave management methods, responses to secession, and adjustment to the travails of Reconstruction and an alien postwar world.
Miles James Smith IV said The finest work avaliable on the great planters.. One of few works to analyze and observe the great planters without condemning them entirely, Scarborough's work answers questions regarding who the antebellum southern elites were and what they believed.