Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- “Race” and “racial discrimination”: A prefatory note on usage
- 1 Approaching the facts
- 2 The people
- 3 The people at work, 1865–1880
- 4 The people at work, 1880–1914
- 5 The fruits of their labors
- 6 Overview and interpretation
- Technical appendix
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
1 - Approaching the facts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- “Race” and “racial discrimination”: A prefatory note on usage
- 1 Approaching the facts
- 2 The people
- 3 The people at work, 1865–1880
- 4 The people at work, 1880–1914
- 5 The fruits of their labors
- 6 Overview and interpretation
- Technical appendix
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Emancipation is one fact, and effective liberty is another. Man does not have all his rights and privileges, he does not have free exercise of his faculties and skills by the simple consequence of the abolition of slavery. Old attitudes survive the proclamation of liberty, and old interests persist through the changes brought about by a new regime. After slavery has disappeared from the law, the former rulers seem to want to preserve slavery in fact.
La Tribune de la Nouvelle Orleans, 1865In black economic history, as in any history, the facts do not speak for themselves. They require selection, classification, and interpretation, and for these purposes the investigator must employ a model. That any attempt at causal analysis must make use of a model, either explicitly or implicitly, is generally admitted. That explicit models are preferable to implicit ones is a long-standing precept of economists and a principle increasingly affirmed by historians. But recognition of the need for an explicit model is only a starting point. Real difficulty arises in choosing an appropriate model. The economic historian, generally a consumer rather than a producer of models, can look to the economic theorist for assistance. The historian may not find exactly what he needs in the existing corpus of economic theory, but it is nevertheless a good place to begin the search for an appropriate model.
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- Information
- Competition and CoercionBlacks in the American economy 1865-1914, pp. 3 - 13Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1977