Artisan Workers in the Upper South

Though deeply entrenched in antebellum life, the artisans who lived and worked in Petersburg, Virginia in the 1800sincluding carpenters, blacksmiths, coach makers, bakers, and other skilled craftsmenhelped transform their planter-centered agricultural community into one of the most industrialized cities in the Upper South. These mechanics, as the artisans called themselves, successfully lobbied for new railroad lines and other amenities they needed to open their factories and shops, and turned a town whose livelihood once depended almost entirely on tobacco exports into a bustling modern city. In ARTISAN WORKERS IN THE UPPER SOUTH, Diane Barnes closely examines the relationships among Petersburg's skilled white, free black, and slave mechanics and the roles they played in southern Virginia's emerging market economy. She demonstrates that, despite studies that emphasize the backwardness of southern development, modern industry and the institution of slavery proved quite compatible in the Upper South.

L. Diane Barnes is an associate professor of history at Youngstown State University.