Life and Labor in the Old South

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.

A celebrated social history, 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 a leading historian of the first half of the twentieth century. Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (1877-1934) sought to include populations neglected in earlier scholarship as a means of underscoring the region's complex diversity and the importance of human interaction.
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 this study its place at the forefront of texts in the historiography of the antebellum South and African American slavery. This edition includes a new introduction by John David Smith that frames the volume within Progressive Era scholarship, chronicles its critical reception, and highlights its influence on contemporary historical debates.

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips taught at the University of Wisconsin, Tulane University, the University of Michigan, and Yale University. His other books include American Negro Slavery, long a basic text on the subject.

John David Smith is the Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.