Understanding Carceral Responses to Mass Enfranchisement: Evidence from Reconstruction

• In Event: Southern Politics and American Political Development

Abstract

In this early-stage project, I investigate the politics of infrastructure expansion in the American South during the Progressive era. The “Good Roads Movement” of the late 19th and early 20th century constituted the rural arm of the Progressive era, advocating for road betterment and highway construction throughout the United States. As public pressure for road construction increased, states experimented with various models to fund infrastructure expansion. In the American South, infrastructure expenditures were kept down by strategically employing county and state convict labor in road construction. Using novel data on incarceration in the postbellum South (PIAS database), I attempt to estimate the “invisible” contribution of convict labor to state public finance, in particular road financing, during this time.

Author

• Susanne Schwarz, Swarthmore College