Masters of the Big House

"In this volume, William Kauffman Scarborough unveils new information about one of the most powerful groups in American history, the 340 wealthiest aristocratic planters who owned 250 or more slaves in the census years of 1850 and 1860. The identification and tabulation in every slaveholding state of these lords of economic, social, and political influence reveals a highly learned class of men who set the tone for southern society and - despite their racism and Yankeephobia - evinced the qualities of honor, generosity, and even grandeur associated with the term "southern gentleman." Scarborough examines in detail the demographics of elite families, the educational philosophy and religiosity of the nabobs, their responses to the sectional crisis of their time, and gender relations in the Big House." "Also recounted are planters' slave management methods, their contributions and sacrifices during the Civil War, and their adjustment to the travails of Reconstruction and a postwar world alien to the one they had dominated."--Jacket.