The Color Factor
The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South
Howard Bodenhorn
Reviews and Awards
"In The Color Factor, Howard Bodenhorn provides a quite detailed examination of free black registers, tax records, and other primary and secondary sources for Maryland and Virginia in order to cast important new light on the still not fully understood aspects of the economic, social, and health differences between those considered to be mulatto and those regarded as black. This issue is not only of importance for historical studies but has significance for understanding the African-American community today." - Stanley Engerman, John Munro Professor of Economics, University of Rochester
"Howard Bodenhorn deftly explores the complexities of color and the status of people of black African ancestry during the slavery and post-slavery eras of 19th century America. The book is a tour de force. It is packed with new insights developed from economic reasoning, descriptions of the legal and social definitions of color, and careful analyses of a wide range of data sources that document the advantages on many socioeconomic dimensions experienced by lighter-skinned people of African descent." - Price V. Fishback, Thomas R. Brown Professor of Economics, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona
"A tour-de-force of interdisciplinary scholarship, Howard Bodenhorn creatively and exhaustively mines an astonishing array of archival materials to study quantitatively the social and economic effects of skin complexion in the early-nineteenth-century United States. Elegantly written, The Color Factor is required reading for scholars wishing to understand how changing economic, social, and political institutions affected the determination of racial identity and its consequences during a crucial period in American history." - Robert A. Margo, Professor of Economics, Boston University
"The Color Effect is a scholarly work that will influence the research agenda for the coming generations in antebellum economic history." - Scott Alan Carson, Journal of Economics