Saving the South: Agricultural Reform in the Southern United States, 1819-1861
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SAVING THE SOUTH: AGRICULTURAL REFORM IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES, 1819-1861 by Ian William Beamish A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland October 2013 ABSTRACT This dissertation re-assesses how the popular national agricultural reform movement operated in the southern states and how it interacted with the economy of slavery and short- staple cotton. The central question that my dissertation explores is how the agricultural reform movement was used and interpreted by reformers and other planters, including how it changed the daily lives of slaves on cotton plantations. Drawing on print sources from the agricultural press, plantation journals and work logs, and slave narratives, this study explores how planter elites used agricultural reform to articulate their goals for and anxieties about the future of their plantation society, as well as the unexpected legacy of reform on the plantation. By moving away from previous scholarship’s singular focus on agricultural literature and societies, this dissertation shows how the ideas of agricultural reform filtered out to planters across the cotton South. Only by considering all three elements of agricultural reform—the public world of reformers, agricultural labor on cotton plantations, and the work of slaves on those same plantations—is it possible to offer a full picture of agricultural reform in the South. This study shows the reach of agricultural reform by combining studies of the print and social worlds of reformers, the account books and non- literary print that popularized reform in the Southwest, cotton work, and plantation case studies. This dissertation traces the intellectual history of southern elites to fundamental changes in the lives of planters, overseers, and slaves in the cotton South. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My dissertation would not have been possible without the support, encouragement, and advice of my advisor, Michael Johnson. Mike constantly pushed me to think more carefully and fully about my sources, shaping the writing of this dissertation. Despite taking great care not to determine my focus or argument, Mike made sure that I always remembered to question my sources and consider why my historical actors were behaving as they were. The other members of my committee also shaped my dissertation in important ways. Ron Walters asked me to move out of my comfort zone and think more broadly about the types of narratives historians use, how to connect my work to broader trends in reform, and to re-evaluate the analytical categories and labels that I chose to use. Phil Morgan provided a constant push to expand and clarify claims. The issues remaining with this project are a result of my not being able to take and implement all of the generous advice of these mentors. I would also like to thank Professors Matthew Crenson and Robert Kargon who took the time to read the entirety of my dissertation and offer generous and perceptive comments. Pier Larson and Richard Kagan also deserve thanks for their roles in helping me develop both as a scholar and a teacher. My dissertation has benefitted incredibly from the aid of librarians and archivists across the country. I would like to particularly thank the staff at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for not only helping me find relevant documents, but also for helping me navigate the complex genealogies of planter families in the nineteenth-century. I would also like to thank the librarians at both the Special Collections Department of the Louisiana State University Library who provided me with invaluable guides-in-progress to the Thomas Affleck Papers and at the South Caroliniana Library in Columbia. In addition, I iii am incredibly grateful to the institutions that offered me support to travel to and work in their archives—the Institute for Southern Studies in Columbia, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. I would like to single out the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia for providing me with a year of support to finish my dissertation in an incredibly welcoming and intellectually stimulating environment. At the CHF, I benefitted greatly from exposure to the history of science and technology and from interactions with the other fellows, especially Laura Kalba, Mat Savelli, Joel Klein, and Ben Gross. I would also like to thank Ron Brashear and Carin Berkowitz for making the CHF such a friendly but productive place to hold a fellowship. Much of this dissertation was written in coffee shops and I would like to thank the owners and staff of Charmington’s (and Charles Village Pub) in Baltimore, Chapterhouse in Philadelphia, and Transcend in Edmonton for not only tolerating my regular presence, but welcoming me. My work has benefitted greatly from the supportive criticism that I received at seminars, colloquiums, and conferences. I am especially grateful to Paul Erickson, Jeanine DeLombard, and Lloyd Pratt for bringing me to the Summer Seminar in Book History at the American Antiquarian Society and to the other participants in the seminar, especially J. Brenton Stewart. My work has also been shaped by my experience at the Slavery’s Capitalism conference at Harvard and Brown, convened by Seth Rockman and Sven Beckert. Lorena Walsh, Caitlin Rosenthal, Ronald Bailey, John Majewski, John Bezis-Selfa, Dan Rood, and Edward Baptist offered invaluable comments. I would also like to thank all of those who have provided such generous and incisive comments on my work at other seminars and conferences, especially Max Edelson, Susan O’Donovan, Cathy Matson, Emily Pawley, Leon Jackson, Paul Rhode, and Alan Olmstead. Ariel Ron has provided many thoughtful, iv perceptive conversations about agricultural reform. At Hopkins, I have presented drafts of most of my chapters to the Nineteenth-Century Seminar. I owe a great deal to the thoughtful comments offered by Patrick Luck, Craig Hollander, David Schley, Rob Gamble, Steffi Cerato, Jessica Ziparo, Katie Hemphill, Steph Gamble, and Noah Cincinnati. Justin Roberts has not only read countless drafts of my work, but has also been a generous mentor and colleague. The community that I found at Johns Hopkins was vital to helping me get through the research and writing process. I thankfully found dissertating to be anything but lonely. I entered graduate school with a wonderful cohort of colleagues, many of whom are now close friends. Basketball provided a frequent distraction from writing and, despite our failure to win the elusive championship, and I am grateful to the faculty and graduate students of the History and English departments who played on the many iterations of our intermural team. I would especially like to thank Jess Clark, Khalid Kurji, and Alex Orquiza. While we are now scattered from Baltimore to Kyrgyzstan, each of them helped me learn how to be a graduate student and academic. My fellow members of Canada House, Kenneth Sheppard and Christopher Stolarski, were excellent colleagues and better friends. Beyond my cohort, many wonderful friends enriched my life and work in Baltimore, especially Natalie Elder, Laurel Flinn, Jonathan Gienapp, Claire Gherini, Katie Hindmarch-Watson, Jason Hoppe, James Kuzner, Ren Pepitone, and Katie Reinhart. Will Brown has been a great friend and, just as importantly, a fellow NBA fan. Gabriel Klehr and Alice Wiemers became two of my closest friends over the course of graduate school and deserve particular recognition for tolerating and supporting me even when I was not at my best. I should acknowledge Alice’s particular contribution as a colleague who has not only been a reliable coworker at various coffee shops but also endured many early drafts of chapters and offered encouragement as v she helped re-shape them into coherent pieces. Together, many of the friends and colleagues that I have met over the course of working on this project will stay with me for life. Back in Canada, I would like to thank several close friends for providing much needed grounding outside of history. Jason Wu, Jeff Tsui, June Cheng, Tina Marx, Degju Suwal, Wilmer Bong, and William Lin have all provided me with lasting friendships and valued visits to Baltimore. Most of all, I would like to thank my family for their support (in all forms) throughout the dissertation process. My aunts and uncles have been unreasonably encouraging about my prolonged studies in the history of a foreign country. My sister, Leigh Beamish, provided an example of determination and perseverance (despite being two years my junior) in her own studies and work as a medical doctor. My parents, John Beamish and Kathleen Pine, have never wavered in their support of my studies and deserve the final acknowledgments (and not just for proof-reading the dissertation). Not only have my parents fostered my work over the past few years, but they set me down the path towards this dissertation. My father, I now realize, is the reason I decided to pursue a doctorate. Throughout his career as a professor of physics, he has been a reminder that work in academia can be a rewarding part of a balanced life. My mother, a librarian, set me on my path towards history with her steady encouragement of reading and learning. I cannot thank them enough for all that they have done for me. vi Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................