FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W2024705402> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W2024705402 endingPage "25" @default.
• W2024705402 startingPage "20" @default.
• W2024705402 abstract "Coercion Had Its Limits Alex Lichtenstein (bio) Charles B. Dew. Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge. New York: Norton, 1994. xviii 429 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, and index. $27.50. The historiography of slavery seems to oscillate between two poles. One tradition, perhaps still best exemplified by Eugene Genovese’s magisterial Roll, Jordan, Roll (1974), relies on the accretion of evidence scattered across time and place to draw the broadest possible conclusions about the peculiar institution. A countertradition, much in vogue now, looks for answers to “large questions in small places,” in Charles Joyner’s phrase. The former approach invariably is challenged by particular cases that refute its generalizations. Yet the latter tendency, of which Charles Dew’s new book is an excellent recent example, risks taking particularity so far that generalization becomes virtually impossible. Bond of Iron represents an especially interesting case of particularity because Dew, probably the foremost historian of industrial slavery, began his research intending to write a broad study of slave ironworkers. But as enough serendipitous discoveries allowed him to piece together the half-century saga of Buffalo Forge, its owner, William Weaver, and the generations of highly skilled slave artisans who labored for him, Dew could not resist taking “an in-depth look at how the slave system functioned at a single southern manufacturing enterprise” (p. xiv). In doing so, his portrait of industrial slavery departs radically from the one general account we have, Robert Starobin’s Industrial Slavery in the Old South (1970). In Starobin’s view, industrial slavery combined the harshest features of early industrial labor and bondage itself, and industrial slaves endured work conditions far worse than those prevalent in plantation slavery. 1 Dew finds, however, that slave ironworkers forged a remarkable degree of control over their own lives. Dew breaks his narrative down into three components. First, he tells the story of the master, tracing the “long and litigious career” (p. 83) of William Weaver, mostly through the numerous chancery court documents generated by Weaver’s frequent (and interminable) lawsuits. Weaver emerges in this portrait as a singular individual. Born into a family of Pennsylvania Dunkers — a religious sect “unalterably opposed to the institution of slavery” (p. 16) — he [End Page 20] invested in Virginia ironworks, secretly purchased a slave labor force, and eventually moved to Rockbridge County in western Virginia to oversee his increasingly profitable venture. As a capitalist, this transplanted Yankee proved utterly ruthless, taking partners and enemies to court over matters large and small throughout the antebellum period. As one ex-partner noted, “‘his friends are few indeed’” (p. 128). But as a slaveowner, Weaver showed remarkable restraint, not once whipping a slave. The black oral tradition in Rockbridge County, provided to Dew by the descendants of Weaver’s slaves, portrays him as a kindly master. Indeed, Dew concludes, “many of the slaves who lived and worked at Buffalo Forge thought more highly of Weaver than most of the whites who did business with him” (p. 133). Weaver quickly discovered that reliable, skilled labor was the key to making a profit in the southern iron business. White workers appeared unreliable — frequently drunk, unwilling to work at a sufficient pace, and ready to complain about the paucity of supplies at Weaver’s isolated works. Slave hiring, while consistently an important method of labor recruitment for Weaver, made him too dependent on an uncertain market. Hiring prices fluctuated, and when the price of tobacco rose it proved difficult to acquire any labor at all. Moreover, hiring provided little opportunity for the continuity necessary to train a cadre of skilled workers. Dew attributes the long-term success of Buffalo Forge to Weaver’s most important investment decision: he built a skilled forge and furnace crew by purchase, relied on generational apprenticeship (and ownership) to perpetuate his labor force, and used the task and overwork system to extract labor from his slaves. But what did this odd combination of merciless capitalist entrepreneurship and slaveowning paternalism mean for the human beings Weaver held as chattel? If the system of slave management he devised eschewed the whip, this was because Weaver relied upon the more subtle form of coercion embodied in..." @default.
• W2024705402 created "2016-06-24" @default.
• W2024705402 creator A5057587255 @default.
• W2024705402 date "1995-01-01" @default.
• W2024705402 modified "2023-09-24" @default.
• W2024705402 title "Coercion Had Its Limits" @default.
• W2024705402 cites W1977510715 @default.
• W2024705402 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/rah.1995.0014" @default.
• W2024705402 hasPublicationYear "1995" @default.
• W2024705402 type Work @default.
• W2024705402 sameAs 2024705402 @default.
• W2024705402 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W2024705402 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W2024705402 hasAuthorship W2024705402A5057587255 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C127413603 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C138885662 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C166957645 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C2777188754 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C2778157309 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C2780510313 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C29598333 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C41895202 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C52119013 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C78519656 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConcept C96494537 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C127413603 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C138885662 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C166957645 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C17744445 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C199539241 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C2777188754 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C2778157309 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C2780510313 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C29598333 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C41895202 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C52119013 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C78519656 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C95457728 @default.
• W2024705402 hasConceptScore W2024705402C96494537 @default.
• W2024705402 hasIssue "1" @default.
• W2024705402 hasLocation W20247054021 @default.
• W2024705402 hasOpenAccess W2024705402 @default.
• W2024705402 hasPrimaryLocation W20247054021 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W1928884694 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2062178904 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2100973556 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2133254138 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2271282189 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2475750016 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2748952813 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2899084033 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W2954650166 @default.
• W2024705402 hasRelatedWork W4210611823 @default.
• W2024705402 hasVolume "23" @default.
• W2024705402 isParatext "false" @default.
• W2024705402 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W2024705402 magId "2024705402" @default.
• W2024705402 workType "article" @default.