Thomas B. Alexander, "Antebellum North and South in Comparative Perspective: A Discussion," American Historical Review 85 (1980): 1150-1154.

SYNOPSIS:

Alexander criticizes the secondary sources on which Pessen rested his argument, and considers these sources too limited, focused more on town than rural life. Alexander points specifically to population density as a key difference between the sections, one that needed explanation and elaboration.

EXCERPT:

"Professor Pessen has long held that wealth is the best single indicator of social class and of power, that wealth in the antebellum United States was very badly distributed, that highly undesirable class distinctions were embedded in the system, and that an image of extensive economic and social mobility is unjustified." (1151)

"The problem of rural intergenerational mobility, either associated with or apart from geographical mobility, moreover, has hardly been touched and may be beyond reach. And, for the substantial proportion of rural nonfarm population for whom real income is elusive, we just do not yet have adequate evidence that wealth was 'the surest sign of social, as well as of economic, position' (page 1130), unless only great wealth is meant." (1151)

"In 1860, the Northern county median in population density had about thirty-two persons per square mile; 95 percent of the Southern counties were lower in density of white residents. Apart from the extreme frontier states of 1860, the median county in every Southern state had a white population density below that of the median county of any Northern state (except that Maryland was tied with Illinois). Such relative dispersion of Southern whites may well have resulted in important sectional distinctions in economy, social structure, or concentrations of power." (1152)

RELATIONSHIP:

Alexander's criticism focused on Pessen's summary of the literature on wealth distribution by Gavin Wright and Lee Soltow. We find similar distribution of wealth in Augusta and Franklin, a finding that confirms Pessen's view and supports Wright's and Soltow's analysis of wealth and income. Our findings also support, however, Alexander's argument that population density may have created divergent social structures.

"The visible differences that slavery made in the arrangement of the landscape were apparent to many observers, but Northerners and Southerners interpreted them differently. Northerners focused on land value per acre and Southerners on the dollar value of their crops."

"Black people enslaved in Augusta married, raised families, and worked at all sorts of jobs, but they were never far removed from the tangled affairs of whites."