In this major reexamination of the southern industrial economy and
its failure to progress during the antebellum period, Fred Bateman
and Thomas Weiss show that slavery and its consequences were not
alone in inhibiting industrialization. They argue, rather, that the
planters hesitated to invest in high-risk enterprises and worried
that industrialization would undermine their authority.
Underpinning this study is a massive data collection from census
reports, which permits an economic analysis that was previously not
feasible.