Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management by Caitlin Rosenthal (review)

The author combines business history with an intimate knowledge of the accounting practices of plantation slavery, acquired through careful archival research, to produce a new perspective on plantation slavery’s evolution into a machine-like operation. [...]she provides an insightful analysis of pla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Technology and culture 2020, Vol.61 (1), p.346-347
Main Author: Stapleton, Darwin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
19th century
20th century
Accounting
Civil war
Factories
History
Plantations
Slavery
Technological change
Violence
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The author combines business history with an intimate knowledge of the accounting practices of plantation slavery, acquired through careful archival research, to produce a new perspective on plantation slavery’s evolution into a machine-like operation. [...]she provides an insightful analysis of plantation business records in both the West Indies and the colonial- and pre-Civil War-era United States. Reflecting on her own experience in a modern accounting firm that provided advice on the contemporary management of labor, the author notes “how easy it is to overlook the conditions of production from the comfort of a countinghouse or the safety of a computer screen” (p. 198).
ISSN:0040-165X
1097-3729
1097-3729
DOI:10.1353/tech.2020.0026