bookslover
Puritan Board Doctor
There's an interesting obit in today's LA Times for him. He was a historian who wrote a groundbreaking book on slavery: The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (1956). In this book, Stampp, in the obit's words, "reject[ed] the moonlight-and-magnolias mythology that inspired such stereotypes as the benevolent plantation owner and the smiling black mammy...he challenged...the previous generation of historians, particularly by showing how the profit motive drove planters to control slaves. He also showed how slaves resisted their bondage, not only through rebellion and escape, but also through more passive methods, such as work slowdowns and breaking tools."
His book was thoroughly researched, "including the use of narratives by fugitive slaves, antebellum newspapers, court records, and slave owners' correspondence."
The standard history, up to 1956, had been a volume, American Negro Slavery (1918), written by Ulrich B. Phillips, a Southerner by birth, whose book was very much pro-slave owner.
Stampp's book is now the standard work on the subject.
He died on July 10, just two days before his 97th birthday.
His book was thoroughly researched, "including the use of narratives by fugitive slaves, antebellum newspapers, court records, and slave owners' correspondence."
The standard history, up to 1956, had been a volume, American Negro Slavery (1918), written by Ulrich B. Phillips, a Southerner by birth, whose book was very much pro-slave owner.
Stampp's book is now the standard work on the subject.
He died on July 10, just two days before his 97th birthday.
