In Augusta, almost every group of white people owned property and homes worth more than their counterparts in Franklin, most of it tied inextricably to slavery.

The difference was most pronounced for personal property. Since slaves constituted an entire category of wealth prohibited in the North, the average farmer in Augusta owned three times as much personal property as the average farmer in Franklin. Slavery seemed responsible, at least in the eyes of whites, for a standard of living that benefited all whites.

Occupations did not differ markedly between the two counties. In both places, professionals, merchants, clerks, and proprietors together accounted for one jobholder in ten. About the same proportion of women worked for wages. One man in five worked as an artisan in both Augusta and Franklin. The southern county employed a quarter of its working population in farming compared to a fifth in the northern county. In both places, the largest single group of workers were unskilled; about three out of ten fell into this category in Augusta, about four out of ten in Franklin.

Women headed a roughly comparable number of households in both counties (just less than 2 percent of households), but in Augusta they were more likely to own real estate and hold personal property. Women headed 781 families in Franklin and 361 in Augusta. The average age of female household heads in both places was almost the same--52 years old--and indicated that many were widowed. In both places a similar proportion of women heading households were white, about 92 percent. A higher percentage of Franklin women heads of household listed their occupation as "farmer," nearly four times the number in Augusta. A higher percentage of Augusta women listed a female occupation, such as sewing or washing, than their counterparts in Franklin. Yet, in Augusta women heads of households possessed on average over $3,500 in real estate and over $1,400 in personal property. In Franklin, by contrast, women heads of households owned on average just over $2,600 in real property and just $400 in personal property.

The distribution of real property was about equal in the two communities, but personal property distribution diverged significantly because of slavery. In both counties, the poorest 40 percent of household heads owned nothing. The top 10 percent of the heads of households in Franklin controlled 62 percent of the county's real estate--almost identical to the proportion owned by the top 10 percent in Augusta. The two counties did diverge in one important respect: the richest 10 percent in Franklin owned 57 percent of personal property, while, due to the value of slaves, the richest 10 percent in Augusta owned 70 percent of all personal wealth. In Franklin, personal property amounted to less than a third of the value of real estate. In Augusta, by contrast, personal property, mostly held in slaves, added up to $10.1 million, nearly three quarters of the $13.8 million of farmland, town lots, and hotels in the prosperous county.

Occupations in Augusta and Franklin, 1860 (table)

Property Holding of Heads of Household (table)

Real Estate and Personal Estate Valuation, 1860 (table)

Wealth and Slaveholding Correlations (table)

Women in Augusta County, 1860 (table)

Women in Franklin County, 1860 (table)

Related Historiography

Edward Pessen, "How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South," American Historical Review 85 (1980): 1119-1149.

Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1986).