Podcasts about masterless men poor whites

Tuesday, March 14th 2023, historian Keri Leigh Merritt returns to This is Hell! is co-editor of the collection, "After Life: A Collective History of Loss and Redemption in Pandemic America." This episode also features this week in Rotten History and new responses to the Question from Hell! Keri Leigh was a guest on the show back in 2017 to discuss a book that was selected as one of our listeners favorites of the year, "Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South." Keri Leigh Merritt is a historian, editor and an independent scholar. She earned her B.A. from Emory University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Her first book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won both the Bennett Wall Award from the Southern Historical Association, honoring the best book in Southern economic or business history published in the previous two years, as well as the President's Book Award from the Social Science History Association. Merritt is also co-editor, with Matthew Hild, of Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power (University Press of Florida, 2018), which won the 2019 Best Book Award from the UALE (United Association for Labor Education). She is currently working on two book-length projects for trade presses. Merritt also writes for the public, and has had letters and essays published in a variety of outlets. Most recently she released a self-narrated audiobook version of Masterless Men, and launched her history-based YouTube Channel “Merrittocracy.”

Join us for a discussion on the collective history of the experience of COVID-19, mass uprisings for racial justice, and more. Join Rhae Lynn Barnes, Keri Leigh Merritt, Yohuru Williams and Heather Ann Thompson as they discuss their the new book After Life: A Collective History of Loss and Redemption in Pandemic America. They will share their thoughts on the collective history of how Americans experienced, navigated, commemorated, and ignored mass death and loss during the global COVID-19 pandemic, mass uprisings for racial justice, and the near presidential coup in 2021 following the 2020 election. Get After Life from Haymarket: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1927-after-life Speakers: Rhae Lynn Barnes is an Assistant Professor at Princeton University and the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. She was the 2020 President of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography. Barnes is the author of the forthcoming book Darkology: When the American Dream Wore Blackface. Keri Leigh Merritt is a historian, writer, and activist based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South, and the co-editor of Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. Yohuru Williams is Distinguished University Chair and Professor of History, and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He is the author of Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights Black Power and Black Panthers in New Haven, and Teaching Beyond the Textbook: Six Investigative Strategies, and, co-author with Bryan Shih of The Black Panthers: Portrait of an Unfinished Revolution. Heather Ann Thompson is a historian and the Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy, as well as a public intellectual who writes for such publications as The New York Times, The New Yorker, TIME, and The Nation. Thompson has received research fellowships from such institutions as Harvard University, Art for Justice, Cambridge University, and the Guggenheim, and her justice advocacy work has also been recognized with a number of distinguished awards. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/4i6x8KDkirc Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Keri Leigh Merritt is a historian, writer, and activist based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South, and the co-editor of Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. After Life is a collective history of how Americans experienced, navigated, commemorated, and ignored mass death and loss during the global COVID-19 pandemic, mass uprisings for racial justice, and the near presidential coup in 2021 following the 2020 election. Inspired by the writers who documented American life during the Great Depression and World War II for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the editors asked twenty-first-century historians and legal experts to focus on the parallels, convergences, and differences between the exceptional "long 2020", while it unfolds, and earlier eras in U.S. History.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt. She is a historian who focuses on issues of equality and poverty in America. Her book, "Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery is the Antebellum South" won the 2018 Bennett H. Wall Award from the Southern Historical Association. Along with Dr. Matthew Hild, she edited "Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power" the 2019 Best Book Awards winner from the United Association for Labor Education. She hosts the podcast Merrittocracy, and she is currently working on a Civil War documentary and a project on Lillian Smith. We speak with her about history, class, race, and Lillian Smith.

DL talks to Keri Leigh Merritt a historian, writer, and activist. Her first book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won both the Bennett Wall Award from the Southern Historical Association, honoring the best book in Southern economic or business history published in the previous two years, as well as the President’s Book Award from the Social Science History Association.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join author-activists Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall and Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt for a conversation about radical, antiracist movements. ———————————————— From the early Abolitionist struggle to the Black Lives Matter movement of today, white people have faced a critical choice: to stand in solidarity with those resisting slavery, Jim Crow, and racism or consent to the brutal realities of white supremacy. As the veteran Civil Rights organizer Anne Braden noted in 1958, "No white person, then as now, can be neutral on this question . . . There was no middle ground." Join author-activists Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall and Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt for an insightful conversation about the history and traditions of southern whites who defied the color line to help build radical, transformative movements against racism. ———————————————— Gwendolyn Midlo Hall is the award-winning author of many articles and multiple books, including Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century and Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Recovering the Links, as well as the editor of A Black Communist in the Freedom Struggle: The Life of Harry Haywood. Midlo Hall is Professor Emerita of Latin American and Caribbean History at Rutgers University. She is a lifelong political activist and spent 15 years researching and creating the Louisiana Slave Database, now accessible as part of Slave Biographies: Atlantic Database Network. She was the wife and collaborator of Communist organizer and writer Harry Haywood. Her new book, Haunted by Slavery: A Memoir of a Southern White Woman in the Freedom Struggle, is forthcoming from Haymarket Books in March 2021. Keri Leigh Merritt is the author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South and co-editor of Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. ————————————————————— Pre-Order Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's forthcoming book Haunted by Slavery: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781642592740 Get Keri Leigh Merritt's book Masterless Men: https://bookshop.org/a/1039/9781316635438 Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/FpoLcTJV4As Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

In this episode, we speak with Keri Leigh Merritt, the author of "Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South." While much of southern history rightly focuses on the impact slavery had on African-Americans, Merritt explains how important it is to also understand the impact it had on poor whites. Her scholarship shows how slavery's echoes are heard today not just in the descendants of slaves, but in those who lived alongside the system.She is active on Twitter at www.twitter.com/kerileighmerritt and her book is available on her website kerileighmerritt.comAxelbank Reports History and Today is active on Twitter at www.twitter.com/axelbankhistory and on instagram @axelbankhistory

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South. Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Beth A. English is director of the Liechtenstein Institute's Project on Gender in the Global Community at Princeton University. She also is a past president of the Southern Labor History Association.

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South. Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Beth A. English is director of the Liechtenstein Institute's Project on Gender in the Global Community at Princeton University. She also is a past president of the Southern Labor History Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South. Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Beth A. English is director of the Liechtenstein Institute's Project on Gender in the Global Community at Princeton University. She also is a past president of the Southern Labor History Association.

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South. Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Beth A. English is director of the Liechtenstein Institute's Project on Gender in the Global Community at Princeton University. She also is a past president of the Southern Labor History Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South. Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Beth A. English is director of the Liechtenstein Institute's Project on Gender in the Global Community at Princeton University. She also is a past president of the Southern Labor History Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South. Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Beth A. English is director of the Liechtenstein Institute's Project on Gender in the Global Community at Princeton University. She also is a past president of the Southern Labor History Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are kicking off our new series: Workers' Book Club! In this ongoing series, we will record workers chatting with authors about books that relate to the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class. To get things started, our host, Maximillian Alvarez, sat down to chat with author, historian, and independent scholar Keri Leigh Merritt about the recent volume she co-edited with Matthew Hild, Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, & Power(University Press of Florida).    Additional links/info below... Keri's website and Twitter page Keri Leigh Merritt & Matthew Hild (eds), University Press of Florida, Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, & Power  Keri Leigh Merritt, Cambridge University Press, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South    Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org) Maya Angelou reading 'Workers' Song' Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall" The Trumpeteers, "Little Wooden Church"

A native of Georgia with humble roots and a love for music (including Johnny Cash), historian Keri Leigh Merrit has been busy. She is the author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (2017) and is the co-editor of Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power (2018). As she tells Colin, since she graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2014, her scholarly path has not been a traditional one. Throughout her life, Keri has been fascinated by questions of class and race in America, whether in discussion of the antebellum period, labor movements, or the southern prison system. Listen as she discusses how historians outside academia have to carve their own path and how very often, it involves doing things no one ever talked about in graduate school.    

Keri Leigh Merritt is a historian of American class, race, and inequality, with a particular focus on the South during and after the Civil War. Her book Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South deftly navigates discourses on race, power, and capitalism, telling us what happens to “excess labor” under a slave economy. In this conversation, she talks about the South’s influence on her direction as a scholar, and explains how vital elements of the Southern political economy (from “right to work” to convict leasing) have spread to the rest of the country.

Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Keri Leigh Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton - and thus, slaves - in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete - for jobs or living wages - with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these 'masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war.Keri Leigh Merritt works as an independent scholar in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Emory University and her M.A. and Ph.D. (2014) in History from the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on race and class in U.S. history. Merritt's work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards. Her first book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. She has also co-edited a book on southern labor history with Matthew Hild, Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power (2018), and is currently conducting research for books on radical black resistance during Reconstruction, and on the role of sheriffs and police in the nineteenth century South.In her spare time, Keri Leigh loves to read, listen to music (everything from jazz and rocksteady to old punk rock), and travel. She also writes historical pieces for the public, with letters and essays appearing in Aeon, Bill Moyers, Salon, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Follow Keri Leigh on Twitter: @kerileighmerrit.

Today we chat with Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt about the topic of her new book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017).   Dr. Merritt is on Twitter as @KeriLeighMerrit and her professional website is https://kerileighmerritt.com.   You can join the discussion on the subreddit here.

Keri Leigh Merritt discusses her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South, and intersections of race, class, politics, and slavery in the pre-Civil War South.

Keri Leigh Merritt is the author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South. Keith and Keri Leigh Merritt discuss the link between economic hardship and the spread of racism throughout American history.

Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017) reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton – and thus, slaves – in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete – for jobs or living wages – with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. The author examines how these ‘masterless' men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Keri Leigh Merritt is an independent scholar from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Emory University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. Her research generally focuses on race and class in American history. Merritt's work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards, and she also writes historical pieces for the public, with letters and essays appearing in Aeon, on BillMoyers.com, and in The New York Times. In addition to Masterless Men, Merritt has a forthcoming co-edited book on southern labor history with University of West Georgia historian Matthew Hild tentatively titled Reviving Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. She is also currently conducting research for two additional book-length projects; the first is on black resistance in the vastly understudied Reconstruction era, and the second project examines the changing role of law enforcement in the mid-nineteenth century south. Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South is her first book. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017) reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton – and thus, slaves – in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete – for jobs or living wages – with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. The author examines how these ‘masterless’ men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Keri Leigh Merritt is an independent scholar from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Emory University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. Her research generally focuses on race and class in American history. Merritt’s work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards, and she also writes historical pieces for the public, with letters and essays appearing in Aeon, on BillMoyers.com, and in The New York Times. In addition to Masterless Men, Merritt has a forthcoming co-edited book on southern labor history with University of West Georgia historian Matthew Hild tentatively titled Reviving Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. She is also currently conducting research for two additional book-length projects; the first is on black resistance in the vastly understudied Reconstruction era, and the second project examines the changing role of law enforcement in the mid-nineteenth century south. Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South is her first book. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017) reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton – and thus, slaves – in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete – for jobs or living wages – with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. The author examines how these ‘masterless’ men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Keri Leigh Merritt is an independent scholar from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Emory University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. Her research generally focuses on race and class in American history. Merritt’s work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards, and she also writes historical pieces for the public, with letters and essays appearing in Aeon, on BillMoyers.com, and in The New York Times. In addition to Masterless Men, Merritt has a forthcoming co-edited book on southern labor history with University of West Georgia historian Matthew Hild tentatively titled Reviving Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. She is also currently conducting research for two additional book-length projects; the first is on black resistance in the vastly understudied Reconstruction era, and the second project examines the changing role of law enforcement in the mid-nineteenth century south. Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South is her first book. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017) reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton – and thus, slaves – in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete – for jobs or living wages – with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. The author examines how these ‘masterless’ men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Keri Leigh Merritt is an independent scholar from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Emory University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. Her research generally focuses on race and class in American history. Merritt’s work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards, and she also writes historical pieces for the public, with letters and essays appearing in Aeon, on BillMoyers.com, and in The New York Times. In addition to Masterless Men, Merritt has a forthcoming co-edited book on southern labor history with University of West Georgia historian Matthew Hild tentatively titled Reviving Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. She is also currently conducting research for two additional book-length projects; the first is on black resistance in the vastly understudied Reconstruction era, and the second project examines the changing role of law enforcement in the mid-nineteenth century south. Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South is her first book. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017) reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton – and thus, slaves – in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete – for jobs or living wages – with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. The author examines how these ‘masterless’ men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Keri Leigh Merritt is an independent scholar from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Emory University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. Her research generally focuses on race and class in American history. Merritt’s work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards, and she also writes historical pieces for the public, with letters and essays appearing in Aeon, on BillMoyers.com, and in The New York Times. In addition to Masterless Men, Merritt has a forthcoming co-edited book on southern labor history with University of West Georgia historian Matthew Hild tentatively titled Reviving Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. She is also currently conducting research for two additional book-length projects; the first is on black resistance in the vastly understudied Reconstruction era, and the second project examines the changing role of law enforcement in the mid-nineteenth century south. Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South is her first book. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017) reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton – and thus, slaves – in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass who were unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete – for jobs or living wages – with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socio-economic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. The author examines how these ‘masterless’ men and women threatened the existing Southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push Southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war. Keri Leigh Merritt is an independent scholar from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Emory University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Georgia. Her research generally focuses on race and class in American history. Merritt’s work on poverty and inequality has garnered multiple awards, and she also writes historical pieces for the public, with letters and essays appearing in Aeon, on BillMoyers.com, and in The New York Times. In addition to Masterless Men, Merritt has a forthcoming co-edited book on southern labor history with University of West Georgia historian Matthew Hild tentatively titled Reviving Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power. She is also currently conducting research for two additional book-length projects; the first is on black resistance in the vastly understudied Reconstruction era, and the second project examines the changing role of law enforcement in the mid-nineteenth century south. Masterless Men: Poor Whites in the Antebellum South is her first book. James P. Stancil II is an educator, multimedia journalist, and writer. He is also the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area NGO dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. He can be reached most easily through his LinkedIn page or at james.stancil@intellectuwell.org.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices