Ep. 40: The recovery of Southern wealth after the Civil War

The American Civil War and emancipation ended chattel slavery, and as a result, substantially reduced the fortunes of slaveholding households in the years immediately following the war. In a paper in the American Economic Review, authors Philipp Ager, Leah Boustan, and Katherine Eriksson find that many White former slave-owning households rebuilt much of their lost wealth in just one generation, and within two generations, most had recovered entirely. According to the authors, this rapid recovery was made possible by non-material advantages, such as social networks and political connections, which persisted in spite of the large loss of wealth. The research challenges common narratives around the South’s recovery from the Civil War by documenting the persistence of much of the wealth created from chattel slavery. Boustan recently spoke with Chris Fleisher about how she and her coauthors approached their research and what their findings say about wealth and inequality.