Contemporary Authors

• The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2015

1. The color factor : the economics of African-American well-being in the nineteenth-century South LCCN 2014046361 Type of material Book Personal name Bodenhorn, Howard, author. Main title The color factor : the economics of African-American well-being in the nineteenth-century South / Howard Bodenhorn. Published/Produced London : Oxford University Press, [2015] Description xiv, 320 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm. ISBN 9780199383092 (hbk. : alk. paper) 9780199383108 (pbk. : alk. paper) Shelf Location FLM2015 181212 CALL NUMBER E185.18 .B63 2015 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2) Shelf Location FLM2016 007005 CALL NUMBER E185.18 .B63 2015 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2)

• Clemson University Website - http://economics.clemson.edu/howard-bodenhorn

  Howard Bodenhorn
  Professor
  Ph. D: Rutgers University
  Fields of Interest: Economic History; Law and Economics
  Topics of Research: U.S. Banking and Financial History; Historical Political Economy; African American Economic History; Economics of Crime

  Faculty and Staff Profile

  Howard Bodenhorn
  Professor

  Office: 200-B Sirrine
  Phone: 864-656-4335
  Fax: 864-656-4192
  Email: BODNHRN@clemson.edu
  Vita: http://people.clemson.edu/~bodnhrn/HB_Vitae_September%202015.pdf
  Personal Website: http://people.clemson.edu/~bodnhrn/

  Educational Background
  Ph.D. Economics
  Rutgers University 1990
  M.Phil. Economics
  Rutgers University 1990
  M.A. Economics
  Rutgers University 1987
  B.S. Business
  Virginia Tech 1982

  Courses Taught
  Economic History of the United States
  Development of the American Economy
  Law & Economics
  Creative Inquiry: Textiles and the Transition of the South Carolina Economy
  Creative Inquiry: Crime and Punishment in South Carolina
  Honors College: A Century of the Federal Reserve
  Principles of Microeconomics
  Profile
  I am an economic historian interested in banking and financial history, the economics of crime, and the economics of race and racial identity. My research in banking history focuses on two issues: (1) the connection between banking and economic development in the nineteenth-century; and (2) how alternative corporate governance institutions influenced bank behavior. My research into the history of crime focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing, and the effects of immigration on crime rates. My research into race focuses on color-based disparities among African Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have received major grants from the National Science Foundation and fellowships from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (2006) and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (2009). I am a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Development of the American Economy group.

  Research Interests
  Banking and financial history, the economic history of crime, the economics of race.
  Research Publications
  Howard Bodenhorn. THE COLOR FACTOR: AFRICAN-AMERICAN WELL-BEING IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY SOUTH. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

  Howard Bodenhorn, Timothy Guinnane and Thomas Mroz. "Sample Selection Biases and the Industrialization Puzzle." Journal of Economic History (forthcoming).

  Howard Bodenhorn. "Prison Crowding, Recidivism, and Early Release in Early Rhode Island." Explorations in Economic History 59 (January 2015): 55-74.

  Howard Bodenhorn and Eugene N. White. "The Evolution of Bank Boards of Directors, 1840-1950." In Enterprising America (2015, pp. 107-148). Edited by William J. Collins and Robert A. Margo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Howard Bodenhorn. "Voting Rights, Share Concentration and Leverage in Nineteenth-Century US Banks." Journal of Law & Economics 57 (2014): 431-458.

  Howard Bodenhorn, Carolyn Moehling and Gregory N. Price. "Short Criminals: Stature and Crime in Early America." Journal of Law & Economics 55 (2012): 393-419.

  Howard Bodenhorn. “Manumission in Nineteenth-Century Virginia.” Cliometrica 5.2 (June 2011): 145-164.

  Howard Bodenhorn. "Federal and State Banking Policy in the Federalist Era and Beyond." In Founding Choices (pp. 151-176). Edited by Douglas Irwin and Richard Sylla. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

  Howard Bodenhorn, Carolyn Moehling and Anne Morrison Piehl. "Immigration: America's Nineteenth-Century Law and Order Problem." In Migration and Culture (pp. 295-323). Edited by Gil Epstein and Ira Gang. Emerald Publishers (2010).

• Howard Bodenhorn Google Profile - https://sites.google.com/site/howardbodenhorn/bio

  I am an economic historian interested in banking and financial history, the economics of crime, and the economics of race and racial identity. My research in banking history focuses on two issues: (1) the connection between banking and economic development in the nineteenth-century; and (2) how alternative corporate governance institutions within banks influence lending choices. My research into the history of crime focuses on recidivism, plea bargaining, immigration and crime, and the connection between alcohol prohibition and violence. My research into race focuses on color-based disparities among African Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I have received major grants from the National Science Foundation and fellowships from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (2006) and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (2009). I am a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Development of the American Economy group.

  CV: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxob3dhcmRib2Rlbmhvcm58Z3g6MWMzOWEwMTAzOWZjNTg5MQ

Bodenhorn, Howard. The color factor: the economics of African-American well-being in the nineteenth-century South

J.D. Smith
53.04 (Dec. 2015): p618+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Bodenhorn, Howard. The color factor: the economics of African-American well-being in the nineteenth-century South. Oxford, 2015. 320p bibl index afp ISBN 9780199383092 cloth, $39.95
53-1855
E185
2014-46361 MARC
Bodenhorn, an economist (Clemson Univ.) and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, focuses on the complex meanings of race, race mixing, and racial identification in the US South in the first half of the 19th century. Drawing on an interdisciplinary arsenal of sophisticated quantitative and statistical tools--especially pertaining to Maryland and Virginia blacks--he underscores the various ways that skin color identification constructed by whites positioned light-skinned blacks in "a racial middle ground" economically, socially, and politically. For all his empirical data, Bodenhorn's identification of "a decided light complexion advantage in the nineteenth century South" simply confirms what students of race relations, as well as scholars of popular culture and literature, have long understood. Unquestionably, light-skinned, mixed-race persons gained advantages over those whom whites deemed to be "pure" blacks. Privileges accorded light-skinned blacks included better jobs and economic mobility, family sustainability, health care, and (prior to 1865) access to freedom. Although encumbered with statistics and formulae, Bodenhorn's clear prose will resonate with Americans seeking to understand the origins of racial distinctions in their history and the power and meaning of race in allegedly "post-racial" US society today. For college and university collections. Summing Up: ** Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.--J. D. Smith, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Smith, J.D. "Bodenhorn, Howard. The color factor: the economics of African-American well-being in the nineteenth-century South." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Dec. 2015, p. 618+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A437506041/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=69954dcf. Accessed 10 Jan. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A437506041

The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South

J. Morgan Kousser
83.3 (Aug. 2017): p685+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South. By Howard Bodenhorn. NBER Series on Long-Term Factors in Economic Development. (New York and other cities: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. xvi, 320. $39.95, ISBN 978-0-19938309-2.)
Historians have long wondered whether Americans of African descent who were considered to be of mixed race were better off than those classified as being black. In this brilliant, nuanced, and comprehensive book, economic historian Howard Bodenhorn shows conclusively that free mixed-race individuals ("mulattoes") in the late antebellum South were, indeed, more prosperous than black people. Examining a wide range of not only statistical data but also qualitative information, Bodenhorn clearly establishes that the nineteenth-century "one drop rule" was often broken at a time when slavery provided the chief racial dividing line.
Slaves of mixed race, Bodenhorn argues, were more likely to bring freedom suits because they were more likely to win them and because they were, on average, more skilled than darker slaves, so they had more to gain, economically, from freedom. In literature, the "tragic mulatta" was a recognized, racially intermediate figure. In what passed as "race science" in the nineteenth century, the brains of those of mixed black and white ancestry were said to be larger than those of darker persons.
Throughout, Bodenhorn takes an economic approach and rigorously examines data. Rather than accepting "postmodern" views of the casual sexual exploitation of slave women, for example, he emphasizes the costs to masters of alienating slave communities and the labor lost because of pregnancy and child rearing. Data on slave prices for mixed-race and black women and girls of different ages in New Orleans is consistent with his theorizing. If white men had been seeking light-skinned slaves for sexual purposes, then the ratio of prices of light-skinned to black women of ages fifteen to forty would have been higher than those of younger or older women. But in fact, the ratios were higher for women and girls outside the age range of likely sexual partners.
Slaves were more likely to run away if they had better chances of escaping and, because of skills such as literacy or the ability to fit into the largely light=skinned free black community, of remaining uncaught. Running away was chancy. Only about 1 percent of slaves did so each year in the late antebellum period, compared with 1 to 2 percent who achieved manumission, often by buying their freedom or being bought by relatives. Applying modern theory on marriage markets, Bodenhorn shows that light-skinned men and women, as theory predicts, were extremely likely to pair off with others of similar skin tone.
Light-skinned free people were also strongly differentiated from their darker brothers in the antebellum South. In a striking finding, Bodenhorn demonstrates that in ten southern cities in 1860, the gap in occupational status between black and mixed-race men was comparable to that between all African American men and all white men, or between native-born white people and white immigrants. Mixed-race men in agriculture were more likely than black men to own their own farms and less likely to be farm laborers. In cities, mixed-race men were more likely to own real estate, and such property was of higher value than that owned by black men. Mixed-race literacy and school enrollment rates exceeded those of the black community. Extremely detailed data from county clerks in Virginia and Maryland reveals that people of mixed race were significantly taller than black individuals, and economists and physiologists have long recognized that height is a good proxy for net nutrition.
This important book deepens and complicates the history of race relations and should remind historians of how useful the application of social scientific methods to historical issues can be.
J. Morgan Kousser
California Institute of Technology
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Kousser, J. Morgan. "The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South." Journal of Southern History, vol. 83, no. 3, 2017, p. 685+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A501078140/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4d6a0c9d. Accessed 10 Jan. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A501078140

Smith, J.D. "Bodenhorn, Howard. The color factor: the economics of African-American well-being in the nineteenth-century South." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Dec. 2015, p. 618+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A437506041/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=69954dcf. Accessed 10 Jan. 2018. Kousser, J. Morgan. "The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth-Century South." Journal of Southern History, vol. 83, no. 3, 2017, p. 685+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A501078140/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4d6a0c9d. Accessed 10 Jan. 2018.

• EH.net
  https://eh.net/book_reviews/the-color-factor-the-economics-of-african-american-well-being-in-the-nineteenth-century-south/
  Word count: 1056

  The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth Century South
  Author(s):
  Bodenhorn, Howard
  Reviewer(s):
  Wanamaker, Marianne
  Published by EH.Net (December 2015)
  Howard Bodenhorn, The Color Factor: The Economics of African-American Well-Being in the Nineteenth Century South. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xiv + 320 pp. $40 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-19-938309-2.
  Reviewed for EH.Net by Marianne Wanamaker, Department of Economics, University of Tennessee.
  Howard Bodenhorn’s manuscript faces two enormously difficult tasks from the onset. First, in examining the nineteenth-century, the book is in danger of becoming just another book about slavery and its unwinding. Second, in promising to provide an assessment of African-American “well-being,” it must necessarily take on the non-pecuniary elements of well-being that economists are frequently poorly equipped to discuss. Bodenhorn’s accomplishments in overcoming both of these hurdles are laudable.
  The opening two chapters make clear how the manuscript aims to avoid being just another book about slavery. Bodenhorn is far more deliberate than the current literature in measuring the effects of color differences within the African-American community on a whole host of relevant outcomes. The opening primer on the legal and cultural implications of mixed-race Americans is fantastically detailed. Most notably, it quickly contrasts the twentieth century “just one drop” racial definition with the more nuanced norms of the nineteenth century, both before and after the Civil War. Although the U.S. Census failed to make accommodations for variation beyond black/white/mulatto, Bodenhorn draws on an impressive number of alternative sources to demonstrate the importance of racial composition distinctions beyond these three groupings for well-being. The third chapter of the book, perhaps unnecessary for investigating well-being per se, is a highly informative effort to elucidate the wide variety of “science” and “philosophy” that informed these racial definitions and social norms. The reader is better for having consumed this information as it helps to place much of the remaining discussion in the context of contemporary thought.
  Having given a thorough review of the broad implications of color for African-American experiences in Southern society, Bodenhorn begins a systematic investigation of the ways in which race contributed to specific outcomes of interest: marriage, sex, fertility, plantation work assignments, manumission and escapes from slavery, property accumulation, health, height and, finally, mortality. The thematic approach is clean and easy to follow. Certainly the chosen categories represent a large proportion of overall well-being. Where possible, the stage is set broadly by establishing a difference between white and non-white outcomes before moving on to more nuanced definitions of racial characterization. For example, in the chapter on marriage, Bodenhorn examines assortative matching by color for 8,644 marriages culled from the Freedmen’s Bureau records. In these records, ten separate race categories, ranging from black to white but also including “griff,” “light” and “quadroon,” can be identified and are transcribed for analysis. Bodenhorn demonstrates that nineteenth century brides and grooms exhibited strong preferences for same-colored spouses, narrowly defined.
  To overcome his second challenge, Bodenhorn relies, sometimes awkwardly, on economic theory to guide discussion. But he provides remarkable narratives and primary source accounts to frame the discussion, giving the book a feel of “Cliometrics plus.” If economic historians are guilty of too frequently reducing humanity and well-being to a measurable quantity, Bodenhorn skillfully weaves a story of people and families to surround the quantitative analysis. For example, in a section on plantations, he highlights whether slaves had agency or bargaining power with respect to particular issues, not merely because these things mattered for economic outcomes but also as recognition that they independently impacted well-being. The resulting work is highly satisfying and highly human.
  Although the book is solidly a nineteenth-century discussion, it often feels like an antebellum study. Perhaps this is because the literature and primary source availability in the postbellum South are weak relative to the pre-war years. But it is more likely that the differences between mixed-race and black experiences were most stark prior to emancipation and therefore make for more interesting discussion and hypothesis testing. The book’s epilogue briefly provides evidence of a narrowing scope for mixed-race individuals to find a “racial middle ground” in the early part of the twentieth century. If the manuscript leaves an opportunity unexploited, it is drawing more clearly the arc between the situation in the immediate post-emancipation South and what would become the Jim Crow one-drop racial definition. What elements of the post-war Confederate and southern Union states led to this erosion? And why did it take a full fifty years for it to come to fruition in the form of Jim Crow? Bodenhorn’s observation that racial-mixing and color are “recently resurgent” in the last few decades only serves to heighten curiosity.
  The Color Factor is an all-encompassing assessment of the relationship between race and quality of life in the nineteenth century. It is highly engaging and likely to become standard reading for scholars studying the economics of American slavery, southern labor markets, and household decision-making in the nineteenth century. Bodenhorn relies on references from a wide swath of social science and humanities disciplines, and I fully anticipate the favor to be returned.
  On the back cover of this manuscript, two prominent economic historians separately refer to Bodenhorn’s contribution as a “tour-de-force,” and I wholeheartedly agree.
  Marianne Wanamaker’s publications include “Municipal Housekeeping: The Impact of Women’s Suffrage on Public Education” (with Celeste Carruthers), Journal of Human Resources (Fall 2015); “The Great Migration in Black and White: New Evidence on the Geographic Mobility of American Southerners” (with William Collins), Journal of Economic History (December 2015); and “Fertility and the Price of Children: Evidence from Slavery and Slave Emancipation,” Journal of Economic History (December 2014)
  Copyright (c) 2015 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator (administrator@eh.net). Published by EH.Net (December 2015). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://eh.net/book-reviews/
  Subject(s):
  Historical Demography, including Migration
  Living Standards, Anthropometric History, Economic Anthropology
  Social and Cultural History, including Race, Ethnicity and Gender
  Geographic Area(s):
  North America
  Time Period(s):
  19th Century

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