From the back of the book:
Although historians have acknowledged
the dominant influence of cotton on the Southern economy, they have paid
scant attention to the marketing of this staple crop. In this thorough study
of the cotton factorage system of the Old South and the post-Civil War crop
lien system, the author reveals not only the economic intricacies of the
systems, but also their far-ranging effects on Southern political and social
life. Economic dependency on cotton continued after the Civil War as the
crop lien system and furnishing merchant displaced the factorage system-a
consequence of the difficulties of financing a one-crop agrarian economy.
For a century, "cotton was king, but he was a puppet monarch."
About the Author:
Harold D. Woodman is a native of
Chicago. A graduate of Roosevelt University, he received his Ph.D. from the
University of Chicago. An economic historian, Woodman has been a Professor
in the Department of History at Purdue University since 1971. The author or
editor of numerous books and articles, Woodman is a Fellow in the Society of
American Historians.
Table of contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Ante-Bellum
Part One: The Cotton Factorage System
1. The Rise of Cotton Factorage
2. Selling the Crop
3. Providing Plantation Supplies and Credit
4. Banker, Bookkeeper, and Friend
5. Commissions, Service Charges, and Interest
6. Planter-Factor Relations: The Law, Tradition, and Expediency
Part Two: Storekeepers, Itinerants, and Bankers:
Attendants to the Factor
7. The Country Storekeeper
8. Itinerant Merchants
9. Bankers and Planters
10. Bankers and Factors
Part Three: Cotton Marketing and the Southern Economy
11. The Need for Credit
12. The Dependent South
13. Cotton Factors and Storekeepers in a Dependent South
14. Bankers in a Dependent South
15. The Costs and Risks of Cotton Marketing
16. Cotton Factoring and Southern Economic Development: Conclusions
Civil War and After
Part Four: Wartime Cotton Trade
17. Business, Not Quite as Usual
18. Blockade-Running and Trade with the Enemy
19. Internal Trade and Speculation
20. Profits Realized - and Profits Lost
Part Five: Economic Reconstruction
21. The Return of King Cotton
22. The Resurrection of the Cotton Factorage System
23. The Decline of Cotton Factorage
24. The Furnishing Merchant
Part Six: Cotton Marketing and the Economy
25. An Agrarian "New South"
26. The Farmer's Quest for Economic Independence
27. The South Remains Dependent: Conclusions
Appendix
Bibliographical Note
Index
