Black prisoners and their world, Alabama, 1865-1900 /

This history examines the confluence of forced convict labor, industrial capitalism, and race in post-Reconstruction Alabama, where blacks made up 96 percent of the county jail populations. Historian Curtin traces the evolution of the convict leasing system, which allowed local coal mine owners to pay the state government a nominal fee for the use of convict labor. The conditions in these mines were abominable, and the workers were routinely and systematically brutalized by the white wardens and guards. Surprisingly, however, a number of freed blacks chose to continue working the mines, and the study is as much a social history of race relations and economics as it is of punishment practices and incarceration patterns. The work joins a growing corpus of recent historical works by Oshinsky, Fierce, Mancini, Shapiro, Myers, and Lichtenstein that examine late-19th-century southern racism, punishment, and overt social control of ex-slaves. The author skillfully weaves a plethora of pr imary and secondary literature into her narrative and includes an epilogue discussing modern uses of leased penal labor in the South as late as 1995. Recommended for libraries specializing in African American and southern history, and advanced sociological studies. K. Edgerton Montana State University at Billings