A Deplorable Scarcity

The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy

In this major reexamination of the southern industrial economy and its failure to progress during the antebellum period, Fred Bateman and Thomas Weiss show that slavery and its consequences were not alone in inhibiting industrialization. They argue, rather, that the planters hesitated to invest in high-risk enterprises and worried that industrialization would undermine their authority. Underpinning this study is a massive data collection from census reports, which permits an economic analysis that was previously not feasible.