Customer Reviews

The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations On Cotton And Slavery In The American Slave States, 1853-1861

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Frederick Law Olmstead travelled extensively throughout the south during the antebellum period, as reflected in this book. He considered the effects of slavery on both blacks and whites and found it to have pernicious effects on both. Although written prior to the Civil War, the book (actually a series of extensive selections from the three original volumes based on his newspaper articles written during his travels)provides a rather indepth and refreshing look at well-known history and looks at the diverse roles played by blacks, white southerners, (and northerners!) in slavery. He also examines their views on the slave issue itself: some nascent Southern abolitionists and colonialists, as well as advocates of slavery, appeared rather intelligent and some otherwise. Many considered slavery an insoluble problem and others defended it as a necessary evil which benefitted blacks and whites alike(!). After completing his tour (including a rather interesting situation in which a black slave seriously injures a biracial runaway, has him clapped in irons and sent to jail - much to the amusement of some white southerners - & an enlightening discussion, especially in light of Talty's research showing persons of pure white descent, including adult foreigners and children who were originally indentured were kidnapped or illegally sold into slavery, of how demeanor would be an adequate determinant of whether or not a "white" slave was really free or not), he provides a critical analysis of slavery and its effects on the south.

This is one you will want to own and add to your collection. It is a wonderful first hand account by an American traveler, traveling through the Southern United States just prior to the Civil War. You have to remember the time in which it was written and take into concideration style, syntax, and most importantly, attitude. For the serious student of the Civil War, it is a must read and a must for the collection. Times were hard then, and this gives a great account of what one would have encountered at that time. This is one you will probably want to read twice, as a matter of fact. All in all, I highly recommend.

Note! This review is not of the book content itself, but of the specific printing The Cotton Kingdom (Civil War) published by Applewood Books in December 2008.


Their publishing is literally a photocopying of one of the original printings in the 1860s or some point on. Definitely before Olmsted's death, as it contains a foreward by the author covering new issues and responses to reactions of his work.


Every page between the covers is a photocopy of an original, from the text, to the author's note, to even advertisements for other books (at the shockingly high price of $1.25 for one in particular!). The pages even have circling and lines and markings done in them by the previous original owner, though these don't get in the way at all.

This is not only an astonishingly good idea for the sake of realism and an extreme example of sticking to the "Not one word ommitted!" dealy, but it gives a great, unvarnished, uninterpreted view into the literature and style of the 1860s in terms of writing and book commercialization and the like.



But there is a huge problem due to the fact that the pages are photocopied. Almost every other page has letters, or even entire words cut off on the left side margins of the text. This runs the gammut from splitting an "a" in half, to completely cutting out a small, but essential word that renders the reading slightly difficult, and even renders a few sentences completely incoherent or illegible.

As well, other pages are simply so badly faded, they are illegible.


Apparently, the copy makes reference to an appendix, and I'm not sure if it was included in the original printing or in other reprints, but this copy does not have an appendix of any sort.



The concept was great, but the execution done was mediocre generic print shop quality.

This edition is full of typos and at points, unreadable. The footnotes from the original are included in the text with no differentiation. This edition only includes one volume of the original. I bought a copy because I needed to mark the text for research purposes, but had to use the library's copy to decipher many of the passages and figure out what belonged in the text. If you plan to use Olmsted for any kind of scholarship, find another version--this is useless.

Frederick Law Olmsted's "The Cotton Kingdom" is a must-read for the curious and serious student of ante-bellum American history. What Olmsted accomplishes in this narrative provides terrific insight into slavery as it existed in the Cotton Kingdom states on the cusp of the outbreak of the American Civil War.

Written in 1860, this travel narrative and commentary was originally three separate feature pieces for the New York Times. Olmsted was not an experienced reporter at the time but was hired as a correspondent to travel throughout the South and offer up his observations and opinions on what he saw. Olmsted had great ability to engage those he met in revealing conversation. His sharp-eyed observations and his analytical ability, with 20-20 historical hindsight to validate them, prove "The Cotton Kingdom" to have been a work of high prescient value.

Within a year of its publication, Abraham Lincoln was elected President. Eleven states of the Old South had broken away from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. The great American Civil War was on. The economic, political and social structure of the slave-holding South that Olmsted observed in his 1860 travels was gone.

Several other reviewers have mistakenly given this wonderful, powerful historical narrative low marks, not for its content but for the style and format of the particular publication they bought. This is most unfortunate because it is the content of this remarkable work that should be judged.

In looking through the various choices on Amazon, I chose to buy the "British Library" edition of this work, set in a larger size type font. In addition, it is a much larger size book. Best of all, the incorrect spellings, typos, handwritten edits, cross-outs, etc., have been removed, making it as easy to read as any modern text.

If you decide to buy this book from Amazon, take time to scroll down amongst the different publications that are offered for "The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveler's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States." The "British Library" edition is currently the third one listed. I highly recommend choosing this one for its size, type font and easy readability.

Frederick Law Olmsted was a journalist and military medic before he became famous as the co-architect of Central Park. This edition of his Southern Travel report could do with some editing and format improvements. It is one dense page after another with no introductory or interpretive material. But as a first hand report of the slave economy during the Confederacy it is superb, just difficult to get through.