The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor. The Lower South
by Ira Berlin (Editor)
Freedom, a Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 (Series 1, vol. 3)
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Union occupation of parts of the Confederacy during the Civil War forced federal officials to confront questions about the social order that would replace slavery. This volume of Freedom, first published in 1991, presents a documentary history of the emergence of free-labor relations in the large plantation areas of the Union-occupied Lower South. The documents illustrate the experiences of former slaves as military laborers, as residents of federally sponsored 'contraband camps', as wage show more laborers on plantations and in towns, and, in some instances, as independent farmers and self-employed workers. Together with the editors' interpretative essays, these documents portray the different understandings of freedom advanced by the many participants in the wartime evolution of free labor - former slaves and free blacks; former slaveholders; Union military officers and officials in Washington; and Northern planters, ministers and teachers. The war sealed the fate of slavery only to open a contest over the meaning of freedom. This volume documents an important chapter of that contest. show lessTags
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Ira Berlin was born in New York City on May 27, 1941. He received a bachelor of science degree in chemistry in 1963, a master's degree in history in 1966, and a Ph.D. in history in 1970, all from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and Federal City College in Washington before becoming a show more professor at the University of Maryland in 1974. He wrote numerous books including Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, and The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States. He also edited several books including Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation with Marc Favreau and Steven F. Miller. He died from complications of multiple myeloma on June 5, 2018 at the age of 77. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor. The Lower South
- Original publication date
- 1990
- Important places
- Southern States, USA; Lower South, USA
- Important events
- American Civil War (1861 | 1865)
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Statistics
- Members
- 9
- Popularity
- 2,308,383
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2



