Oct 11, 2021
When
a Civil War substitute broker told business associates that "Men is
cheep here to Day," he exposed an unsettling contradiction at the
heart of the Union's war effort. Despite Northerners' devotion to
the principles of free labor, the war produced rampant speculation
and coercive labor arrangements that many Americans labeled
fraudulent. Debates about this contradiction focused on employment
agencies called "intelligence offices," institutions of dubious
character that nevertheless served the military and domestic
necessities of the Union army and Northern households. Northerners
condemned labor agents for pocketing fees above and beyond
contracts for wages between employers and employees. Yet the
transactions these middlemen brokered with vulnerable Irish
immigrants, Union soldiers and veterans, former slaves, and
Confederate deserters defined the limits of independence in the
wage labor economy and clarified who could prosper in
it.
Men
Is Cheap shows that in the
process of winning the war, Northerners were forced to grapple with
the frauds of free labor. Labor brokers, by helping to staff the
Union military and Yankee households, did indispensable work that
helped the Northern state and Northern employers emerge victorious.
They also gave rise to an economic and political system that
enriched the managerial class at the expense of laborers--a reality
that resonates to this day.
Available here
"Men
Is Cheap" is published by the University of North Carolina
Press.