Cotton Capitalists

Cotton Capitalists
Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
Total Pages : 286
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781479881017
ISBN-13 : 1479881015
Rating : 4/5 (17 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Cotton Capitalists by : Michael R Cohen

Download or read book Cotton Capitalists written by Michael R Cohen and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-12-05 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honorable Mention, 2019 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical Society A vivid history of the American Jewish merchants who concentrated in the nation’s most important economic sector In the nineteenth century, Jewish merchants created a thriving niche economy in the United States’ most important industry—cotton—positioning themselves at the forefront of expansion during the Reconstruction Era. Jewish success in the cotton industry was transformative for both Jewish communities and their development, and for the broader economic restructuring of the South. Cotton Capitalists analyzes this niche economy and reveals its origins. Michael R. Cohen argues that Jewish merchants’ status as a minority fueled their success by fostering ethnic networks of trust. Trust in the nineteenth century was the cornerstone of economic transactions, and this trust was largely fostered by ethnicity. Much as money flowed along ethnic lines between Anglo-American banks, Jewish merchants in the Gulf South used their own ethnic ties with other Jewish-owned firms in New York, as well as Jewish investors across the globe, to capitalize their businesses. They relied on these family connections to direct Northern credit and goods to the war-torn South, avoiding the constraints of the anti-Jewish prejudices which had previously denied them access to credit, allowing them to survive economic downturns. These American Jewish merchants reveal that ethnicity matters in the development of global capitalism. Ethnic minorities are and have frequently been at the forefront of entrepreneurship, finding innovative ways to expand narrow sectors of the economy. While this was certainly the case for Jews, it has also been true for other immigrant groups more broadly. The story of Jews in the American cotton trade is far more than the story of American Jewish success and integration—it is the story of the role of ethnicity in the development of global capitalism.


Cotton Capitalists Related Books

Cotton Capitalists
Language: en
Pages: 286
Authors: Michael R Cohen
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-12-05 - Publisher: NYU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Honorable Mention, 2019 Saul Viener Book Prize, given by the American Jewish Historical Society A vivid history of the American Jewish merchants who concentrate
Slavery's Capitalism
Language: en
Pages: 417
Authors: Sven Beckert
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-07-28 - Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an
Southern Capitalists
Language: en
Pages: 403
Authors: Laurence Shore
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-08-25 - Publisher: UNC Press Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Studying the changing strategies used by the nineteenth-century southern leaders to justify their direction of the South's economy and politics, Shore shows how
South Africa's War Against Capitalism
Language: en
Pages: 184
Authors: Walter Edward Williams
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 1989 - Publisher: Greenwood

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Written for students, laypersons, and scholars who seek a deeper understanding of the roots of apartheid in South Africa, this book focuses upon the relationshi
River of Dark Dreams
Language: en
Pages: 561
Authors: Walter Johnson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-02-26 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

River of Dark Dreams places the Cotton Kingdom at the center of worldwide webs of exchange and exploitation that extended across oceans and drove an insatiable