ABSTRACT
Through the first half of the twentieth century, scholars charting the business history of the South began their discussion with the post-Civil War boom in railroads and cotton mills. However, Eugene Genovese's masterful work of the 1960s employed Marxist theory to reject a business-oriented South focused on profit margins and instead uncovered a region that was pre-capitalist where paternalism shaped work relations as well as business and social exchange. Southern agricultural business, fueled by an ever-increasing dependency on slavery, gave rise to a powerful political class that provided both financial and ideological support to the Revolution. Post-Revolutionary geographical expansion and population increase, both slave and free, had important implications for southern business. The Civil War had profound implications for southern business. The civil rights revolution of the 1960s resulted in an important shift in southern business. The business appeal of low-wage agricultural workers meant that employers resisted educational advancement in order to keep the wages low and to limit mobility.
