Randall M. Miller

The Fabric of Control: Slavery in Antebellum Southern Textile Mills *

The factory system in one of its earliest forms—the textile mill—made limited strides in the American South during the closing decades of the slave era. While bondsmen were put to work in mills almost from the beginning, the problem of adapting an agricultural work force to the factory system was one that had to be solved simultaneously with the development of the factory system itself. Since then, historians have wondered whether the use of slaves in early industry was an intensification of the human aspects of bondage or whether it represented a marginal improvement in their physical and spiritual welfare. Professor Miller offers no answer to these questions, nor to those of how widespread or how successful was the use of slaves as factory operatives. He demonstrates, however, that apart from the fact that bondsmen took to factory work more readily than poor whites, the problems to be solved by managers, before a successful degree of efficiency could be achieved, were common to all new industrial systems; clearly, the development of an intelligent disciplinary system, enlightened motivation, and good working conditions were as important in using slaves as in using free labor.

The Origins of Proslavery Christianity: White and Black Evangelicals in Colonial and Antebellum Virginia

brought him back alive. The fact that she was unable to do so is not a measure of her skills as a historian, which are formidable, and worthy of a salute from the sidelines by a reviewer who shares her appreciation for a non-academic audience. Peter has simply failed her by not providing the historical evidence required to document the story she wishes to tell. This is not her fault, though Peter’s experience is our silent burden.

The Making of African-American Protestantism

Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830. SYLVIA R. FREY and BETTY WOOD. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. xiv, 285pp.

The Censorship Papers: Movie Censorship Letters from the Hays Office, 1934 to 1968. By Gerald Gardner. (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987. xxiv + 226 pp.

37.95 (cloth);

18.95.)

12.95 (paper). ISBN 0–8078–2375–9; 0–8078–4681–3. A Separate Canaan: The Making of an Afro‐Moravian World in North Carolina, 1763–1840. JON SENSBACH. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. xxiii, 342pp.

Lynching in America: Some Context and a Few Comments

45.00. ISBN 0–8078–2394–5.