White Labor Research Articles

White Population, Labor Force and Extensive Growth of the New England Economy in the Seventeenth Century

Economic historians have always recognized the importance of changes in population to any investigation of economic growth or well-being. The payments to labor in every economy, even the highly industrialized modern economies, always constitute the bulk of national income when figured via the factor payments method. Hence what happens to the size and rate of compensation of the labor force is crucial to any economic history. With this in mind we present below new decade population and labor force estimates as a first step toward understanding the overall growth of seventeenth-century New England.

An Ecological Analysis of Voting Behavior in Baton Rouge: From Strom Thurmond to George Wallace

For at least twenty years three homogeneous areas have comprised the ecological pattern of Baton Rouge, divided along at least two dimensions—one occupational (manual—nonmanual) and the other ethnic (black-white). Presidential voting data by precincts from 1948–68 were subjected to analysis of variance. After higher than expected Republican support earlier, in the last two elections black areas have voted strongly Democratic. Upper-white and white labor voters seem to be searching for a non-Democrat party alternative in American presidential politics.

An Ecological Analysis of Voting Behavior in Baton Rouge: From Strom Thurmond to George Wallace

For at least twenty years three homogeneous areas have comprised the ecological pattern of Baton Rouge, divided along at least two dimensions—one occupational (manual—nonmanual) and the other ethnic (black-white). Presidential voting data by precincts from 1948–68 were subjected to analysis of variance. After higher than expected Republican support earlier, in the last two elections black areas have voted strongly Democratic. Upper-white and white labor voters seem to be searching for a non-Democrat party alternative in American presidential politics.

A comparison of Negro and white labor in a charcoal iron community

A comparison of Negro and white labor in a charcoal iron community

The Education of Members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

This paper analyzes the levels of education of the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and compares them with the educational levels of the Soviet population as a whole, the white collar labor force, and the Communist Party membership. The Central Committee proves to be the most highly educated group; 79 per cent have some form of higher education, largely technical and professional in nature. At least half the membership was educated during Stalin's initial drive for planned industrial development and agricultural collectivization. This education was initially relevant for entrance to the political power elite, but its relevance for subsequent promotion is questionable. Less than 10 per cent of the Soviet population has an education comparable to that of the Central Committee, but white collar professionals and the technocratic elite have a higher level of education than that of the elite Party membership.

Slavery and the Slave Power: A Crucial Distinction

SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE POWER: A Crucial Distinction Larry Gara In 1847 a Garrisonian abolitionist wrote: "We believe slavery to be a sin—always, everywhere, and only, sin—sin, in itself, ... All the incidental effects of the system flow spontaneously from this fountain head."1 Garrison, himself, when accused of using harsh language towards slaveholders , retorted: "The whole scope of the English language is inadequate to describe the horrors and impieties of Slavery, and the transcendent wickedness of those who sustain this bloody system."2 And in 1851, at their annual meeting in Salem, Ohio, western abolitionists resolved : "That we are not merely warring against the extension of new slave territory, . . . nor against any fugitive slave law constitutional or unconstitutional; nor for the writ of habeas corpus, or the right of trial by jury for recaptured slaves, but we are waging eternal war against the doctrine that man can ever under any possibility of circumstances, hold property in man."3 The Garrisonians thus viewed the struggle against slavery as a never ceasing moral crusade. Anyone who dealt with slaveholders or who compromised in any way with their institution—even to the point of voting under a slave-sanctioning Constitution—was committing mortal sin and extending aid and comfort to the sinners. Their concern about slavery included pity for the individual slave. At times it extended to the rights of free Negroes in the northern states, as when Garrisonians helped in the successful fight against racially segregated schools in Boston. Not all Americans who became involved in antislavery activity placed the same emphasis on the moral aspects of the question as did the Garrisonians and other moral suasionists. When the issue became political, the question of southern power played an increasingly significant role in northern thinking. One observer, writing to Charles Sumner in 1858, contrasted American and Brazilian slavery, by saying "the fact is, that, in this country, Slavery is really fostered as a source of 1 "What Abolitionists Believe," in the Salem, Ohio Anti-Slavery Bugle, Sept. 24, 1847. Research for this article was made possible by a research grant from the Kettering Fund made available to the author by the Wilmington College Tenure and Personnel Policies Committee. a The Liberty Bell. By Friends of Freedom (Boston, 1848), p. 284. 3 Report of the Executive Committee of the Western Anti-Slavery Society, Aug. 25, 1851 in "Minute Book of the Western Anti-Slavery Society," Library of Congress . O CIVIL WAR HISTORY political power, & not as an economical or social desideratum."4 A friend commented to Congressman Horace Mann: "I have been astonished for many years to see how the Slave power (not one fiftieth part of the voters) manage to control the whole United States." He quoted Theodore Parker who said: "The North can manage Steam & Water Power but the South can manage Men," and wondered whether "their business as Slave raisers and Slave drivers fit them for this?"5 Speaking in 1849 in Massachusetts, Salmon P. Chase noted that the American aristocracy is held together and made a unit, not so much by its property in slaves, as by the political power which the Constitution has deposited in their hands as the representatives of slaves. They represent their slaves. They put into the Houses of Congress, and into the Electoral College of the United States, the political power which is the exponent of their slaves; and of course, they are bound together, just as any other aristocracy could be, by the strongest of possible ties. This power then came into existence, as a distinct, independent, aristocratic power in the government, naturally opposed to the temper and spirit of our institutions."6 Though Chase and the other political abolitionists also regarded slavery as morally wrong, the main thrust of their attack was against the slave power. They feared the effect of continued national rule by slaveholding interests on northern rights, on civil liberties, on desired economic measures and on the future of free white labor itself. They had the active support of many who were very little concerned about the morality of slavery, the plight of the individual slave or the rights of free Negroes, north or south. It was the power...

The Extent of Wage and Salary Discrimination against Non-White Labor

as the current cost of past discrimination. This paper is concerned with market discrimination against non-white wage and salary earners. This aspect of market discrimination is measured by the net wage and salary income differentials between perfectly substitutable white and nonwhite labor. In order to avoid confusing these income differentials with the more inclusive concept of the cost of market disc imination, the differentials are interpreted as measures of the extent of wage and salary discrimination against nonwhite labor.

Northern Referenda On Fair Housing: the Response of White Voters

to first-class citizenship, Negro Americans seldom have acquired sufficient electoral strength to achieve their objectives without additional support. As a minority group in most Northern localities, Negro voters frequently have attempted to enlist the aid of whites in the pursuit of full equality and freedom. The efforts occasionally have been successful, but there have been growing recent indications that the responses of the white electorate to Negro political aspirations may reveal opposition and resistance rather than cooperation and support. Political ties between Negroes and whites frequently have occupied a prominent role in the struggle for civil rights. In some Northern cities including Detroit, for example, Negro organizations and white reform groups or labor unions have joined to promote common political aims.? Yet, relatively little attention has been devoted to the positions on racial issues of various groups in the electorate. Perhaps fewer studies have been conducted on attitudes or voting behavior regarding questions of discrimination or prejudice in Northern than in Southern cities.2 The gains that have been secured in the urban areas of the North often have seemed to result from an aroused public conscience rather than from the vigorous exertion of white voters. Frequently, moreover, advocates of civil rights have encountered substantial resistance when proposals have been offered for equal educational opportunities, integrated housing, and impartial police practices. On such issues, the merged voting strength of Negroes and white liberals necessary to attain desired electoral goals often has been either lacking or ineffective. In recent years, at least eleven Northern cities and states have held referenda on civil rights issues.3 In eight of these cities or states, proposals in the interest of Negro citizens have been defeated by the voters. The results of recent ballots on specific issues of discrimination, therefore, have provided little encouragement for securing additional progress on civil rights by circumventing the legislative process through direct appeals to the people. Even more importantly, the strength of civil

Moral Value Structure of Laborers and Penitentiary Inmates: A Research Note

A questionnaire containing 50 moral values items was administered to white marginally middle-class laborers, white penitentiary inmates, and Negro penitentiary inmates. A comparison of the responses of the white laborers and the white penitentiary inmates revealed significant differences on 26 of 50 items, with the laborers presenting a more condemning or more “conservative” judgment on nearly all moral values items. A comparison of the white and Negro convicts revealed significant differences on eight of 50 items. On moral values or ethical judgments about behavior, it appears that differing social class subcultures and/or criminal-noncriminal subcultures produce greater divergence than do differing racial groups.

The Transvaal Labour Crisis, 1901—6

One of the crucial reasons for the failure of British policy in South Africa during the Reconstruction period was an acute shortage of African labour for the mines, which were therefore unable to support a large English-speaking immigrant community. According to the prevailing economic beliefs, there was a fairly rigid ratio between the numbers of unskilled coloured workers and of skilled white workers which the mines could employ, so that the scarcity of African labour did inhibit the mines from expanding their white labour force.The reasons for this scarcity include the deplorable physical conditions in which labourers lived and worked, and the unusually large demands for African labour in other sectors of the economy. British policy also, inadvertently, put less pressure on Transvaal Africans to take industrial or agricultural employment. However, the scarcity of labour was noticeable not only within British South Africa, but more especially outside its borders, where Africans seem to have been more reluctant than usual to take employment in the mines. It is possible to argue that the shortage was caused partly by the disillusionment of the workers as a result of their experience of British administration, and partly by a fairly extensive determination to withhold labour until conditions were improved. Such an interpretation is compatible with the facts of the case, though impossible at this stage to prove.Whatever the reasons for the scarcity, the result was the importation of Chinese labour to supplement the existing unskilled labour force. The well-documented complaints of the Chinese labour throw some light on the treatment of African labour. The Chinese also undercut the wages paid to Africans, who lost their commanding position as unconscious arbiters of the success of mining. Further, the Chinese were employed in terms of a very restrictive contract, whose terms were later extended to cover African labour as well, with the result that the industrial colour-bar was solidified at a time when white labour was in control of an unusually large area of employment.

The Outlook for the South African Republic

T tHE Union of South Africa has gone and the South African Republic has come. South Africans themselves scarcely seem aware of a new status. There are of course implications of the change which sooner or later will be forced on our consciousness. At the moment, our preoccupations remain so essentially what they have been, at least for the last thirteen years, that we are more concerned with what remains the same than with what has changed or is likely to change. South Africa, monarchical or republican, in or out of the Commonwealth, still has the same significant composition, the same challenges to meet, the same destiny to fulfil or reject. These are enough in themselves to absorb all our energies. But they are also of a character that lends us a special importance, not only to ourselves but to the world at large. Our population, though small, is highly complex, and though our history is comparatively short, it has brought us face to face in this generation with the ultimate challenge of all history, that is, whether people of different kinds can find a way to live together harmoniously, and if so, how the process of accommodation is to be organised so that the highest values we all cherish can be safeguarded and maintained. South Africa is a microcosm of the world. She contains within herself all the forces that tend to drive men apart rather than to unite them. It is of the first importance to everyone that she should discover a way of life that will subdue these forces and produce happy and contented people. So far she has not done so, and already history-in which her own part has not been the least important-has tended to complicate the circumstances and to vitiate the atmosphere in which she must seek the solution of her problem. The question now is whether fortune and fate will still leave her sufficient time to surmount her difficulties and find a way out. South Africa's record in the field of race relations has for long been fairly explicitly one of discrimination based on colour. All Governments since Union have subscribed to a policy of privilege, of putting the interests of one section of the population, the whites, before those of any of the other sections, the non-whites. They have at times been quite openly and unashamedly exploitive, for example in the days of a declared white labour policy. At other times, more or less serious efforts have been made to 295

The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac, 1861-1865

THS RICHMOND, FREDERICKSBURG AND POTOMAC, 1861-1865 Charles W. Turner The War between the States was the first of four wars in which the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad played an outstanding role. Chartered in 1835, the road ran from Richmond to the Potomac River via Fredericksburg. It not only provided transportation between Washington and Richmond but also connected with major lines running south and west of Virginia's capital. Moreover, the railroad was a vital north-south approach to the capitals of the opposing governments, and afforded almost ideal means for carrying troops and supplies to and from the strategic area through which it passed. From the outset of the war both sides realized the value of the R. F. & P. In 1861 eleven locomotives of the line pulled 134 cars of various types over a seventy-five-mile track. The railroad had a capital of more than $2,000,000. Virginia controlled 2,752 shares of the company's stock; the city of Richmond owned 2,300 shares. The remaining stock was in the hands of London financiers and out-of-state residents. A president and four directors, elected annually by the stockholders, were the chief officers of the line. Prior to 1861, the R. F. & P. semiannually paid a 3 per cent dividend to its stockholders.1 The road had able leadership from its inception. The Robinson family (ofAshland) furnished presidents, engineers, and superintendents prior to the War between the States. Peter V. Daniel, Jr., was president when the war started. His re-election throughout the war years reflected his ability. His spirit was best shown in 1861, when he declared: "Whatever sacrifices of profit or convenience we may be called upon to incur either as a company or as citizens it is not doubted that they will be cheerfully borne at the price of the independence and welfare of counCharles W. Turneris professor of history at Washington and Lee University. He is the author of Chessie's Road, a history of the Chesapeake b- Ohio Railroad . !Charles W. Turner, "Virginia Railroads, 1727-1861" (Unpublished dissertation , University of Minnesota, 1946 ), p. 185. 255 256charles w. turner try and future peace and prosperity."2 He labored tirelessly to keep the line open for business, and in the process suffered drastic reduction in personal income. The next most important positions were those of superintendents of transportation and upkeep, held in the war years by Samuel Ruth and William Bragg, respectively. To them came countless complaints over lack of service and high rates. When the war ended, Major E. L. D. Myers served as civil engineer in rebuilding bridges and track beds. Myers was no novice, for in the 1850's he had worked with Claudius Crozet in the construction of the Virginia Central's Blue Ridge tunnel —the largest tunnel in the United States at the time. So well did Myers serve the R. F. & P. that the company subsequently named him general superintendent and president. Other personnel included the faithful treasurer, C. W. MacMurdo, and 190 individuals who served as conductors, train engineers and firemen , baggage men, mechanics, inspectors, carpenters, unskilled laborers, and depot agents at Fredericksburg, Guiney's, Milford, Pole Cat, Chesterfield, Junction, Ashland, and Richmond. The question of securing skilled and unskilled labor was an important problem for Southern railroads in 1861-65. Besides the demand for higher wages, raids took off the Negroes while conscription drained off the white labor supply. Railroad employees were not excused from military service, and the usual procedure was to replace all types of help with disabled veterans. This continued until President Peter V. Daniel, Jr., presented to the Confederate Congress in January, 1864, a remonstrance against indiscriminate conscription of railroad employees. The War Department was asked to take up the matter and grant the railroads some measure of relief. The Confederate Congress passed an act in the spring of 1864 exempting from military service a certain number of skilled laborers for railroad duty, but with a provision that these men might be called back into service if an emergency arose.3 This problem of insufficient manpower remained in spite of this act, and many were the advertisements for help published in local newspapers...

THE WHITE LABOUR FORCE OF SOUTH AFRICA

THE WHITE LABOUR FORCE OF SOUTH AFRICA

The Organization of the Slave Trade in the English West Indies, 1660-1685

B ) Y i66o the man who planted tobacco on a farm was being displaced, rapidly in Barbados and more gradually in the Leeward Islands, by the man who cultivated sugar on a large estate. Contemporary calculations that io,ooo white people quitted Barbados between i645 and i665, and that another 4,000 left between i667 and i67I,1 are probably exaggerated, but the very exaggeration illustrates how plain the process of worming must have been. The fate of the dispossessed cannot be ascertained accurately, since displaced persons, having no official status, have also no official history. Some certainly transferred themselves to Jamaica, where the proclamation of Governor Lord Windsor in I662 had promised freehold of 30-acre farms. Plainly they hoped by so doing to avoid involvement in a sugar-economy, in which it was clear they could never have a place: for did it not take upwards of 400 acres to lay out a plantation, as well as /6,ooo to finance and maintain it?2 But the majority, it would seem, took themselves off to Virginia, Carolina, and the Leeward Islands, where indigo, cotton, and tobacco, all originally small men's crops, might still be raised.3 It was clear, then, that the local supply of white labor was failing. It could still be imported from English and Scottish jails, but that was an expensive process. Experience had taught the sugar-planters that there was a better substitute to hand in the labor of the African Negro, who could comparatively easily be exported to the plantations from the Guinea Coast

The Employment of Negroes in the United States by Major Occupation and Industry

The Negro came on the American scene as an order-taker-a slave who as a worker was always the supervised and directed, never the order-giver except to other slaves. As a consumer as well as a producer his area of free choice was limited and the disposition of his person as well as his offspring was not within his control. His emancipation gave the Negro worker the right to choose between employers and to withhold his services from an employer but changes in his occupational status as a worker relative to that of white workers have been slow. In short, he attained horizontal mobility as a worker but very limited vertical mobility. He could change employers but his occupational level was rigidly fixed within narrow limits regardless of who his employer was or where he worked. While the Negro's late arrival and his status as slave in a plantation system provide an economic explanation for his relatively low occupational status as compared with free white labor at the beginning of his life as a free wage earner, such circumstances cannot fully explain the snail's pace at which his

The Nonwhite Female in the Labor Force

The much higher nonwhite than white female labor force rate is explained in part by age differences but to a negligible degree by marital status, family size, and husband's employment and occupation. More important, however, appear to be the differences in the relationship between these variables and labor force participation for the nonwhite population as compared with the white.

Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 16O7–1776. By Abbot Emerson Smith. Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1947. Pp. viii, 435. $5.00.

Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 16O7–1776. By Abbot Emerson Smith. Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1947. Pp. viii, 435. $5.00.

Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607- 1776.

Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607- 1776.

SMITH, ABBOT EMERSON. Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776. Pp. viii, 435. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia, 1947. $5.00

SMITH, ABBOT EMERSON. Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776. Pp. viii, 435. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Virginia, 1947. $5.00

Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776

Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776