Slavery's Capitalism:
A New History of American Economic Development
A conference, April 7-9, 2011
sponsored by Brown University and Harvard University
The decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War witnessed two economic transformations: the harnessing of machinery and capital into an industrial revolution and the vast expansion of slavery across a so-called Cotton Kingdom. These were not rival developments, but rather the twin engines of the nineteenth-century American economy. This three-day conference will showcase the latest research on the role of slavery in American economic development, pointing toward a new history of capitalism itself.