Date:
Location:
Seminar in Economic History – joint event with Alesina Seminar.
Speaker
Jeffry Frieden (Harvard), “Was Freedom Road a Dead End? Political and Socio-economic Effects of Reconstruction in the American South”
Abstract
Reconstruction brought a political and social revolution to the former Confederacy. Freedmen were enfranchised and Black political participation soared, despite widespread hostility in the defeated states. Federal troops occupied the region and Freedmen’s Bureau offices were established widely. The reforms of Reconstruction were eventually reversed by white supremacists, but by then Black southerners had experienced substantially increased civil and human rights for several decades. We ask how these major institutional changes – Black enfranchisement, federal military occupation, and the Freedmen’s Bureau– affected Black political participation and Black socio-economic advancement. We use the location of federal troops and Freedmen’s Bureau offices as indicators of more intensive federal protection of the rights of newly freed people. We find that Black men were more likely to be able to register to vote, and the Republican Party received more votes, in counties with more federal protection. Turning to socio-economic outcomes, we find that Black children were more likely to attend school and Black people were more likely to be literate in areas where Reconstruction was more rigorously enforced. Similarly, Black people were better able to achieve higher levels of occupational status and earnings, and Black farmers were more likely to own their own farms, in counties with a more intensive Federal presence. We suggest a mechanism leading from greater Black political power to higher local property taxes, through to higher levels of Black schooling and greater Black socioeconomic achievement. These effects persisted at least until the early twentieth century. In all instances, however, the positive impact of Reconstruction was less pronounced in cotton-plantation zones. The results indicate the power of political-institutional change – such as the expansion of the franchise – to provide opportunities for oppressed people to achieve a measure of political power and persistent socio-economic advancement.
Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.
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All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.