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Dissertation Information for Jeffrey Robert Young

NAME:
- Jeffrey Robert Young

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (1996)

ADVISORS:
- James L Roark

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected

Title: Domesticating slavery: The ideological formation of the master class in the Deep South, from colonization to 1837

Abstract: My dissertation explores the relationship between antebellum southern domestic ideals and the planters' development as ruling elite. Focusing on Georgia and South Carolina from 1663 to 1837, I examine how the slaveowners' family lives evolved in tandem with their stance within the public sphere of imperial and American politics. As the racial and sexual dynamic of the plantation household came to be predicated on the notion of organic reciprocity, masters in the Deep South formulated a class identity as benevolent stewards, supposedly motivated less by monetary considerations than by Christian regard for the welfare of their dependents. Curiously enough, however, this new mentality was inculcated through the very market structures that the proslavery ideologues ultimately denounced as the bane of moral society. By uncovering the actual cultural dynamic by which the slaveowners' identity was established, I attempt to reconcile paternalistic and capitalistic interpretations of planter ideology--interpretations that have divided the last generation of antebellum southern historians into opposing camps.

In chapter 1 (1663-1769), I characterize the slaveowners as astute businessmen, who looked to the metropole for military protection but not for advice on how to manage their enslaved workforce. In chapter 2 (1770-1786), I argue that the planters' fear of slave insurrection encouraged them to rebel against British authorities who were seeking to ameliorate plantation slavery. Chapter 3 (1787-1800) depicts how the slaveowners' attitude toward organic doctrine became increasingly positive following the establishment of a new American nation. In chapter 4 (1800-1815), I study the religious and literary institutions that promoted a new standard for slaveowner conduct in the early nineteenth century. Having restructured their understanding of the plantation household, the planters were prepared to employ an unyielding defense of slavery as a positive good against their northern political opponents--a topic covered in chapter 5 (1816-1829). The final chapter surveys the sectional crises of the 1830s and presents evidence that, by 1837, the slaveowners had emerged as a coherent master class that defined itself in contrast to northern capitalists. Throughout the entire dissertation, however, I demonstrate that their sectional political culture was built upon literary and religious ideas that reached southern masters only because the capitalist market had so effectively integrated them into a broader transatlantic intellectual and economic community.

MPACT Scores for Jeffrey Robert Young

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C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
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TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-03-31 11:44:48

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Students under Jeffrey Robert Young

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None