![]() ![]() ![]() Many historians are interested in using account books to uncover the experiences of enslaved people I was coming to this with a business background. Why isn’t slavery already a part of the business history narrative? ![]() So, I decided I wanted to write the business history of slavery, which is this very different type of business. The Southern records were markedly more advanced than the average practices seen in the textile mills, and I found evidence of a lot of interesting business management techniques. One day I went to the archives, and started looking at business records from New England textile mills, as well as Southern plantation records and account books. So when I went to graduate school for history, I wanted to study the same ideas. ![]() And I got really interested in how businesses that employed tens of thousands of people came to dominate the economy, and how people thought about businesses of that scale. Historian Caitlin Rosenthal extensively researched the morally reprehensible business of slavery for her new book, “ Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management.” In the book, she lays out the case that slaveholding “planters” employed accounting and management techniques that are still in use by businesses today.īelow is an edited transcript of Rosenthal’s conversation with Marketplace senior reporter Kimberly Adams.Īfter college, I went to work as a management consultant. ![]()
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