The Work of Reconstruction: From Slave to Wage Laborer in South Carolina 1860–1870

by Julie Saville

In their efforts to achieve freedom, ex-slaves mounted a dual struggle to elude the personal domination of the old order and to blunt new coercions embedded in terms of emerging wage employment. This book draws on a rich documentary record to allow ex-slaves to express in their own words and behavior the aspirations that underlay their efforts. The author discusses the labor disputes that convulsed the post-Civil War South, in which can be read former slaves' critiques of both Southern slavery and Northern freedom.

Genres: History, American History

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 1994

Reviews

[Aaron Gibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like five distinct articles combined into a single volume, without a really substantive argument connecting them. Still an interesting study of Black labor and politics in the post-Reconstruction South, but not the most straightforward in terms of argument.