Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America - Couverture souple

Livre 141 sur 177: Civil War America

Luskey, Brian P.

 
9781469688381: Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 1469688387 ISBN 13 : 9781469688381
Editeur : The University of North Carolina Press, 2025

Synopsis

When a Civil War substitute broker told business associates that "Men is cheep here to Day," he exposed an unsettling contradiction at the heart of the Union's war effort. Despite Northerners' devotion to the principles of free labor, the war produced rampant speculation and coercive labor arrangements that many Americans labeled fraudulent. Debates about this contradiction focused on employment agencies called "intelligence offices," institutions of dubious character that nevertheless served the military and domestic necessities of the Union army and Northern households. Northerners condemned labor agents for pocketing fees above and beyond contracts for wages between employers and employees. Yet the transactions these middlemen brokered with vulnerable Irish immigrants, Union soldiers and veterans, former slaves, and Confederate deserters defined the limits of independence in the wage labor economy and clarified who could prosper in it.

Men Is Cheap shows that in the process of winning the war, Northerners were forced to grapple with the frauds of free labor. Labor brokers, by helping to staff the Union military and Yankee households, did indispensable work that helped the Northern state and Northern employers emerge victorious. They also gave rise to an economic and political system that enriched the managerial class at the expense of laborers--a reality that resonates to this day.

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À propos de l?auteur

Brian P. Luskey is associate professor of history at West Virginia University and author of On the Make: Clerks and the Quest for Capital in Nineteenth-Century America.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
The University of North Carolina Press
Date d'édition
2025
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1469688387
ISBN 13 
9781469688381
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
296
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9781469654324: Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  1469654326 ISBN 13 :  9781469654324
Editeur : The University of North Carolina..., 2020
Couverture rigide