Scraping By

Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore

By:

Seth Rockman

Format:

Paperback / softback

Series:

Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia

Show Hide Adult Content

$101.00

Available from supplier

Usually ships in 3-4 weeks

0 in Trolley

Price Match

Wrap this item as a gift ($5.90) - add a free gift card on the next page

Free Delivery with Primate

Join Now

Free 14 day free trial, cancel anytime.

Buy Now, Pay Later with:

4 payments of $25.25 with Afterpay Learn more

6 weekly interest-free payments of $16.83 with Laybuy Learn more

Availability

Delivering to:

Estimated arrival:

Around 12-24 June using International Courier

Description

Enslaved mariners, white seamstresses, Irish dockhands, free black domestic servants, and native-born street sweepers all navigated the low-end labor market in post-Revolutionary Baltimore. Seth Rockman considers this diverse workforce, exploring how race, sex, nativity, and legal status determined the economic opportunities and vulnerabilities of working families in the early republic. In the era of Frederick Douglass, Baltimore's distinctive economy featured many slaves who earned wages and white workers who performed backbreaking labor. By focusing his study on this boomtown, Rockman reassesses the roles of race and region and rewrites the history of class and capitalism in the United States during this time. Rockman describes the material experiences of low-wage workers-how they found work, translated labor into food, fuel, and rent, and navigated underground economies and social welfare systems. He also explores what happened if they failed to find work or lost their jobs. Rockman argues that the American working class emerged from the everyday struggles of these low-wage workers. Their labor was indispensable to the early republic's market revolution, and it was central to the transformation of the United States into the wealthiest society in the Western world. Rockman's research includes construction site payrolls, employment advertisements, almshouse records, court petitions, and the nation's first "living wage" campaign. These rich accounts of day laborers and domestic servants illuminate the history of early republic capitalism and its consequences for working families.

Author Biography:

Seth Rockman is an assistant professor of history at Brown University and author of Welfare Reform in the Early Republic.

Release date NZ

March 26th, 2009

Author

Seth Rockman

Audience

General (US: Trade)

Illustrations

4 Line drawings, black and white; 8 Halftones, black and white

Pages

392

Series

Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia

Dimensions

152x229x24

ISBN-13

9780801890079

Product ID

6916573

Customer reviews

Nobody has reviewed this product yet. You could be the first!

Write a Review

Marketplace listings

There are no Marketplace listings available for this product currently.
Already own it? Create a free listing and pay just 9% commission when it sells!

Sell Yours Here

Get free delivery, exclusive deals, and more^*

Non-Fiction Books:

Scraping By

By:

Format:

Series:

Buy Now, Pay Later with:

Availability

Description

Author Biography:

Customer reviews

Marketplace listings

Help & options

Filed under...

Get free delivery, exclusive deals, and more*

Buy Now, Pay Later with:

Author Biography:

Get free delivery, exclusive deals, and more^*