Life and Labor in the Old South

Southern Classics

by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, John David Smith (Introduction)

A new edition of the groundbreaking social history of the American South

Celebrated as a classic work of historical literature, Life and Labor in the Old South (1929) represents the culmination of three decades of research and reflection on the social and economic systems of the antebellum South by the leading historian of African American slavery of the first half of the twentieth century.

In this provocative social history, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (1877–1934) cast his net widely to include populations neglected in earlier scholarship—Indians, Latinos, yeomen farmers, and mountain folk. Underscoring the region's complexity and diversity and the importance of human interaction, Phillips viewed slavery as an unprofitable but necessary means of maintaining racial control in the South, emphasizing degrees of loyalty between masters and slaves and pointing to slavery's benign and cruel characteristics. He also espoused his basic belief in the slaves' inherent inferiority and saw the institution as an education for African Americans. "All in all," he concluded, "the slave regime was a curious blend of force and concession, of arbitrary disposal by the master and self-direction by the slave, of tyranny and benevolence, of antipathy and affection."

Life and Labor in the Old South represents both the strengths and weaknesses of first-rate scholarship by whites on the topics of antebellum African and African American slavery during the Jim Crow era. Deeply researched in primary sources, carefully focused on social and economic facets of slavery, and gracefully written, Phillips's germinal account set the standard for his contemporaries. Simultaneously the work is rife with elitism, racism, and reliance on sources that privilege white perspectives. Such contradictions between its content and viewpoint have earned Life and Labor in the Old South its place at the forefront of texts in the historiography of the antebellum South and African American slavery. The book is both a work of high scholarship and an example of the power of unexamined prejudices to affect such a work.

The Southern Classics edition includes a new introduction by John David Smith that frames the volume within Progressive Era scholarship, chronicles its critical reception among blacks and whites, and highlights its influence on contemporary debates about southern identity and slavery.

Genres: History, American, American History

375 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 19

About the author

American historian who studied the American antebellum South and slavery. Phillips concentrated on the large plantations that dominated the Southern economy, and he did not investigate the numerous small farmers who held few slaves. He concluded that plantation slavery produced great wealth, but was a dead end, economically, that left the South bypassed by the industrial revolution underway in the North.

By turning away from the political debates about slavery that divided North and South, Phillips made the economics and social structure of slavery the main theme in 20th century scholarship. Together with his highly eloquent writing style, his new approach made him the most influential historian of the ante-bellum south. His interpretation of white supremacy as the "central theme of southern history" remains one of the main interpretations of Southern history.

Some of Phillips's views were rejected in the 1950s, but they were revived again in the 1960s. As Harvard Sitkoff wrote in 1986, "[I]n the mid-1960s Eugene D. Genovese launched a rehabilitation of Phillips that still continues. Today, as in Phillips's lifetime, scholars again commonly acknowledge the value of many of his insights into the nature of the southern class structure and master-slave relationships. The reviewing of Philips' arguements continues into the 21st Century, with the historian Ira Berlin writing in his review of Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited From Slavery: "Slavery in the North, like its counterpart in the South, was a brutal, violent relationship that fostered white supremacy. Complicity's authors shred the notion, famously advanced by the Yale historian U.B. Phillips, that the central theme of Southern history was the region's desire to remain a white man's country. Phillips was not so much wrong about the centrality of white supremacy to the South as blind to its presence in the North."

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

While groundbreaking in scope and in the use of original documents for its time, Phillips' work is also overtly prejudiced, as he ignores the voice, experience, and point of view of the slaves, and falls back on 19th-century Southern rationales for slavery and lamentations over the "Lost Cause."

[Avi · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is a “Lost Cause” that I subscribe to it is the lost cause of publishing history written like this – well-styled engaging prose coupled with long excerpts from primary texts. The author had about ten years of uninterrupted archival research behind him – a privilege rarely granted today’s historians – and the texture of the final product is very rich. You definitely need to read this book if you are studying the antebellum south, and you are likely to even enjoy it – or parts of it. But, as you might expect, there are some glaring problems, moral and historiographic.

If you read the introduction by John David Smith, you will learn about the progress Phillips made towards recognized the humanity of black people over the course of his career, in the years between American Negro Slavery published in 1918 and this volume in 1929: “...he also presented a more realistic, more critical view of slavery; he even exhibited degrees of sympathy for the bondsmen and women and acknowledged pathos in their lives.” As worthwhile as the introduction generally is, I feel those shifts can mostly be attributed to the broader scope of the present work, which dilutes the intensity of anti-black racism. I think there’s no question, in the context of the Jim Crow South, that Phillips was contributing to a reactionary narrative of nostalgia for the antebellum world. It is one whose excesses and cruelties were implicitly justified by a certain nobility, honor, and earthiness that was scarce in Phillips’ 20th century U.S.

As far as I understand it, the question of the efficient profitability of the slave system, as well as its relationship to capitalism more broadly, is still debated. Phillips’ perspective was that slavery hampered profitability and was more a program for social control than economic flourishing. This is not, in his hands at least, an anti-slavery or anti-racist perspective. Rather, it helps romanticize the south and contrast it with the capitalist north. The implicit political program is a return to racial order coupled with some rationalizing updates.

Regarding his sources: he explicitly preferred to rely on the first-hand accounts of members of the planter class – which, conveniently, are more numerous and articulate than written records from poor whites or enslaved black people. Travelers, he claims, tended to sensationalize, and ex-slave narratives “were issued with so much abolitionist editing that as a class their authenticity is doubtful.” But he is not as critical of the planter’s biases. One reviewer writing in the 70’s summed up Phillips’ approach as follows: “[He] wrote history as a fair-minded, perceptive, well-informed large planter might have done.” I think that’s about right, and it’s a backhanded compliment. The result is an overall picture that emphasizes the proclivities of individual planters (some were good to their slaves, some too cruel; some managed crops well, others were wasteful) at the expense of a systemic view. But lucky for us, much of the material is ripe for critical, against-the-grain reading, which as far as I know was a major project of early Eugene Genovese.

So, yes, this is book is essential as well as glaringly flawed – not well-suited to the five-star review system :)

[Odessa Higdon-Crenshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life and Labor in the Old South represents the strengths and beauty of first-rate scholarship. Deeply researched in primary sources, carefully focused on social and economic facets, and gracefully written, Phillips' germinal account set the standard for his contemporaries. A must have for any student of the Old South.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Problematic because Phillips's overt racism, but an important work in the early historiography of American slavery.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

✒️ This book was surprisingly fascinating.

📕Published — 1929. In the public domain.

જ⁀🔵Read on ⅈꪀ𝕥ꫀ𝕣ꪀꫀ𝕥 ꪖ𝕣ᥴꫝⅈꪜꫀ.
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[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just started learning about the history of the history of slavery in the South. This is the first of many books I will be reading on the subject. I enjoyed reading the book...but had difficulty with many of the words and references the author used. The author was writing with a 1920s mind...and for his time he was considered the top of his field and "Progressive" but it was hard for my 21st century mind to wrap my brain around some of the things I read. I think it was a great book to introduce the topic...and it did give me a lot to think about. Issues of environmental determinism, the OLD SOUTH and the "good ole days," paternalism, and why slavery...all issues that are of interest and need to be studied.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book illustrates how slaves were business assets, regarded for their value to earn money, even to the point of the value of women who would produce more slaves.
It's an overview of the operation of plantations on a day to day basis, how some owners prospered with agricultural skills and how others failed, how some could manage their slaves and others could not. Stories come from personal accounts of life in the late 1800s.