Race Unequals: Overseer Contracts, White Masculinities, and the Formation of Managerial Identity in the Plantation Economy
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Description
By examining employment contracts between plantation owners and overseers, and the broader legal and social framework of the antebellum South, this book challenges the monolithic image of the White male identity of the era. It reveals how, while race granted White men access to land and enslaved labor, the wealthiest among them employed contracts, public laws, and plantation management strategies to restrict the upward mobility of overseers, the nation's first managerial class. As overseers navigated the complex legal and social landscape of their employment contracts, they forged a unique form of White masculinity tied to their managerial role. This managerial identity, shaped by the demands of plantation labor and the constraints of White supremacy, has left a lasting legacy, potentially influencing the power dynamics and inequities of modern workplaces.
ISBN
9781498599061
Publication Date
2021
Publisher
Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group)
Keywords
Overseer Contracts, White Masculinities, Managerial Identity, Plantation Economy, Social Hierarchies, Historical Identity, Power Dynamics, Colonialism, Gender Studies, Economic Structures, Racial Constructs, Antebellum South
Recommended Citation
Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb, Race Unequals: Overseer Contracts, White Masculinities, and the Formation of Managerial Identity in the Plantation Economy (2021)
Comments
On Display - P200; HD1471.U52 S68 2021