The Antebellum Kanawha salt business and western markets /

The Antebellum Kanawha salt business and western markets /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Stealey, John E., III, 1941- author.
Imprint:	Morgantown [West Virginia] : West Virginia University Press, 2016. [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 2016.
Description:	1 online resource (1 PDF (xxiii, 261 pages)) : illustrations, map
Language:	English
Series:	West Virginia and Appalachia West Virginia and Appalachia.
Subject:	Salt industry and trade -- West Virginia -- Kanawha River Valley -- History -- 19th century. Salt industry and trade. West Virginia -- Kanawha River Valley. Electronic books. History.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11384802

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781943665310 1943665311 9781943665297 194366529X 9781943665303
Digital file characteristics:	data file
Notes:	"First edition published 1993 by University Press of Kentucky"--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-252) and index. Print version record.
Summary:	In the early nineteenth century a ten-mile stretch along the Kanawha River in western Virginia became the largest salt-producing area in the antebellum United States. Production of this basic commodity stimulated settlement, the livestock industry, and the rise of agricultural processing, especially pork packing, in the American West. The Virginia saltmakers dominated their locality in capital access, labor supply, and manipulation of public policy. Salt extraction was then and is now a fundamental industry. In his illuminating study, John Stealey examines the legal basis of this industry, its labor practices, and its marketing and distribution patterns. To control output and markets, the saltmakers created legal combinations - output pools, lease/re-lease contracts, joint stock companies, and a proposed trust - that are the earliest such examples in the United States. These combinations drew national opposition from western consumers and a crusade to reduce the salt tariff that revealed the international aspects of salt commerce. By eliminating middlemen in distribution, the Virginia salt producers anticipated later nineteenth-century manufacturers who tried to control prices and marketing. Their struggle with rationalization of factory management and marketing operations marks them as premodern business pioneers. Through technological innovation, they harnessed coal and steam as well as men and animals, constructed a novel evaporative system, and invented drilling tools later employed in oil and natural gas exploration. Thus in many ways the salt industry was the precursor of the American extractive and chemical industries. Stealey's informative study is an important contribution to American economic, business, labor, and legal history.
Other form:	Print version: 194366529X 9781943665297

Description
Summary:	In the early nineteenth century, a ten-mile stretch along the Kanawha River in western Virginia became the largest salt-producing area in the antebellum United States. Production of this basic commodity stimulated settlement, the livestock industry, and the rise of agricultural processing, especially pork packing, in the American West. Salt extraction was then and is now a fundamental industry.<br> <br> In his illuminating study, now available with a new preface by the author, John Stealey examines the legal basis of this industry, its labor practices, and its marketing and distribution patterns. Through technological innovation, salt producers harnessed coal and steam as well as men and animals, constructed a novel evaporative system, and invented drilling tools later employed in oil and natural gas exploration. Thus in many ways the salt industry was the precursor of the American extractive and chemical industries. Stealey's informative study is an important contribution to American economic, business, labor, and legal history.<br>
Item Description:	"First edition published 1993 by University Press of Kentucky"--Title page verso.
Physical Description:	1 online resource (1 PDF (xxiii, 261 pages)) : illustrations, map
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-252) and index.
ISBN:	9781943665310 1943665311 9781943665297 194366529X 9781943665303