The failure of the Freedman's Savings Bank (FSB), one of the only Black-serving banks in the early post-bellum South, was an economic catastrophe and one of the great episodes of racial exploitation in post-Emancipation history. It was also most Black Americans' first experience of banking. Can...

This essay is based on a featured lecture that I gave as part of the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal's 2 symposium on a proposed right of publicity law in New York. The essay draws from my recent book, The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World, published by Harvard...

From the end of the Civil War to the onset of the Great War, the United States experienced an unprecedented increase in commitment rates for mental asylums. Historians and sociologists often explain this increase by noting that public sentiment called for widespread involuntary...

This article examines some of the more pertinent details of the feminization of clerical work in the context of early twentieth century Canada and the impact that this had upon gender pay inequality. More generally, we address the question of the conditions under which labor market segmentation,...

This essay surveys some of the key themes in Southern economic history and traces the development of the region through the colonial and revolutionary eras, the antebellum period, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the post-bellum period, and the modern period. In particular, I highlight the...

Income and wealth inequality rose over the first 150 years of U.S. history. They may have risen at times in Britain before 1875. The first half of this century equalized pre-fisc incomes more in Britain than in America. From the 1970s to the 1990s inequality rose in both countries, reversing...

Before they became the most famous pair of advocates in the U.S. women’s suffrage movement, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were temperance activists. Advocating for the prohibition of alcohol in a world in which women lacked both political and property rights, they sought to curb...

Immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before the Civil War were less likely to reside in locations with high immigrant concentrations as their time in the U.S. increased. This is contrary to the experience of recent immigrants who show no decrease in concentration after arrival. The reduced...

Income and wealth inequality rose over the first 150 years of US history. They rose in Britain before 1875, especially 1740–1810. The first half of the 20th century equalized pre-fisc incomes both in Britain and in America. From the 1970s to the 1990s inequality rose in both countries,...

Particular industries have dominated many locations in the United States for more than a century. We show that individuals residing in such locations were systematically less likely to move away from there during the past few decades. By identifying locations with sizable employment shares in...