Labor History Commons^™

Acknowledging Our Past: Race, Landscape And History, Alea Harris, Kaycia Best, Dieran Mcgowan, Destiny Shippy, Vera Oberg, Bryson Coleman, Luke Meagher, Rhiannon Leebrick Ph.D., Phillip Stone

Student Scholarship

This book is the product of nearly a year's worth of student research on Wofford College's history, undertaken as part of a grant by the Council of Independent Colleges in the Humanities Research for the Public Good initiative. The research was supervised and directed by Dr. Rhiannon Leebrick.

"Guiding Research Questions:

How did Wofford College and its early stakeholders support and participate in slavery?

How is the legacy of slavery present in the landscape of our campus (buildings, statues, names, etc.)?

How can we better understand Wofford as an institution during the time of Reconstruction through the Jim Crow era? …

Constructing The World's Largest Prison: Understanding Identity By Examining Labor, Hubert J. Gibson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

A Civil War prison camp operated by the Confederacy known as Camp Lawton was once considered the largest prison in the world. This label was attributed to the fact that Lawton’s stockade enclosed 42 acres. The historical record does not have a clear picture of who built it. Newspaper interviews claim the construction was carried out by 500 impressed slave laborers and 300 Union POWs, but these lack the credibility of official orders. Unfortunately, many Confederate documents were lost when Sherman’s army came through Millen, GA. This study archaeologically examines construction techniques utilized for building stockades in an effort …

A Company Of Shadows: Slaves And Poor Free Menial Laborers In Cumberland County, Maine, 1760 – 1775, Charles P.M. Outwin

Maine History

Although slaves and poor, free menial laborers were by no means a majority of the population in late colonial-era Maine, they represented a culturally and socioeconomically significant part of commercial society there, especially at Falmouth in Casco Bay (now Portland) and in coastal Cumberland County. This essay uncovers the lives of the Falmouth’s small slave population and its larger poor menial laborer population from 1760 up to the port city’s destruction by the British in 1775. The author was granted a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maine in 2009. He is a member of the Maine Historical Society, …

Fictional Advertisement, An Illustration From "Tom Clifton...." By Warren Lee Goss, 1892: "Gang Of 25 Sea Island Cotton And Rice Negroes", Warren Lee Goss

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

This item was originally created and disseminated as an illustration in the novel Tom Clifton, or, Western boys in Grant and Sherman's army, '61-'65, by Warren Lee Goss, published in 1892. The advertisement appeared on an unnumbered page in chapter 7.

This is a fictional advertisement for a sale of 25 enslaved people in Charleston, S.C. at Ryan's Mart on Chalmers Street, September 25, 1852.

Slave Trade Ledger Of William James Smith, 1844-1854, William James Smith

Local History

This ledger meticulously details the prices paid and received for scores of human beings (as slaves; only first names are recorded), as well as the expenses incurred by Smith in undertaking this business venture, such as feeding, clothing, sheltering, and nursing the people he purchased and sold. The details of the book illustrate that Smith took several "trips" between 1844 and 1854 to buy and sell slaves: detailed records of purchases and sales of "Negroes" exist for all of the years between 1844 and 1854. The listing of expenses for the year of 1844 (the most complete account) indicate that …

Liquor License, Barnwell District, South Carolina, August 21, 1841., Barnwell District, South Carolina

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

In which the licensee, William Robertson Jr., swears to not "sell give exchange barter" liquor to any slaves. Signed by C.A. Scott.

List Of Slaves, Including Their Ages, At Spring Garden Plantation, Florida, 1829., Spring Garden Plantation

Broadus R. Littlejohn, Jr. Manuscript and Ephemera Collection

This item is a list of over 80 "negroes" — slaves of African descent — at Spring Garden, a plantation in present-day DeLeon Springs State Park, Florida. The list notes the first names of slaves and their ages. Annotations indicate occupations and work assignments, family units, and if individuals were sent to Charleston or sold locally. The meaning of some annotations are unclear or at least not explicit, such as small circles next to females' names. Annotations indicate this list was used as reference more than once. One pair of twins is noted as are several infants. Reference to the …