“The Righteous and Reasonable Ambition to Become a Landholder”: Land and Racial Inequality in the Postbellum South

I appreciate helpful suggestions from Brigitte Madrian (the editor), anonymous referees, and my dissertation committee (Warren Whatley, Ben Chabot, Martha Bailey, Maggie Levenstein, Tiya Miles, and the late Gary Saxonhouse). I thank Stanley Engerman, Price Fishback, Timothy Guinnane, Joanna Lahey, Naomi Lamoreaux, Sara LaLumia, Bob Margo, and Gavin Wright for their useful suggestions and conversations about this project. I benefited from the comments of seminar participants at the University of Michigan, NBER Development of the American Economy Summer Institute, Economic History Association Annual Meetings, and the Social Science History Association Meetings. Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch kindly shared their data and answered any questions I had. I thank the National Science Foundation (award SES-0619588), the Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund, and the Economic History Association for their generous support.

A supplemental appendix is available online at http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/suppl/10.1162/rest_a_00842.