Ben Franklin's World 422: Plantation Goods: How Northern Industry Fueled Slavery
Oct 7, 2025
Seth Rockman, a history professor at Brown University and author of 'Plantation Goods: A Material History of Slavery', dives into the often-overlooked everyday items that sustained slavery, like shoes and axes. He reveals how Northern factories were intricately linked to Southern plantations, creating a national economy. Rockman discusses the archival challenges he faced, the role of market research in shaping goods for enslaved laborers, and how these materials helped forge racial knowledge. His insights connect the dots between capitalism and the legacy of slavery.
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Mundane Goods Make National Links
- Everyday items like shoes, axes, and cloth created material links across distant regions of the United States.
- Tracing a single pair of shoes reveals economic, social, and escape-related stories that connect New England makers to Southern enslaved people.
North-South Economies Were Interdependent
- New England and the Plantation South were synergistic markets in the antebellum decades, not simply opposites.
- Northern manufacturers relied on the plantation economy as a captive market while Southern planters depended on northern goods and northern mills relied on southern cotton.
Archives Reveal Lost Material Culture
- Factory artifacts often didn't survive, but extensive business records reveal production, design, and client feedback.
- Textile swatches, letters, and firm archives let historians reconstruct how manufacturers designed goods for plantations.
