A dramatic and human narrative of a nearly forgotten time―when the quest for cotton dominated American commerce, and the expansion of slavery corrupted the American soul.
-- Douglas A. Blackmon ― winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Slavery by Another Name
Wall Street looms so large for Americans, especially lately, that it’s easy to forget that its peculiar characters and cultures―from bankers and speculators to shysters and swindlers―grew up in the South before the Civil War. By revisiting the Age of Jackson and the land rush following Indian removal, Joshua D. Rothman follows the money to reveal the cultural history of modern American capitalism. A master storyteller and researcher, Rothman digs up amazing (and often hilarious) tales of real strivers who made, missed, and lost fortunes. Flush Times and Fever Dreams reminds us how thin the line has always been between investor and gambler, success and failure.
-- Scott A. Sandage ― author of Born Losers: A History of Failure in America
This is at once a cultural history of storytelling, a social history of slavery and slave stealing on the Mississippi, a history of gambling, and a compelling microhistory of a man who couldn’t stop trying to narrate himself into fame and fortune. Flush Times and Fever Dreams is a fascinating, well-written, and beautifully plotted book.
-- Scott Reynolds Nelson ― author of Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend
The true history of the Cotton Kingdom before the Civil War was no less bizarre and bloody than anything [Django Unchained] has to offer. [A] new book by [an] excellent historian, Joshua Rothman's Flush Times and Fever Dreams . . . reveal[s] that slave owners' wild fantasies had deadly practical consequences.
-- Adam Rothman ― Daily Beast
Overall, Rothman presents an engaging, page-turning account of the development of the Old Southwest. . . . Flush Times and Fever Dreams stands as an important contribution to antebellum history and helps us understand the true dimensions of how the southern frontier developed.
-- James J. Gigantino II ― Arkansas Historical Review
[Flush Times and Fever Dreams] provides college-level American history readers with a specific examination from a master storyteller . . . this offers a vivid portrait of American Southwest history and is a solid pick for any history holding seeking lively scholarship.
-- California Bookwatch
Rothman . . . tells a series of gripping and often grisly tales of [1830s Mississippi]. . . . Rothman tells these stories well, evoking a sense of social and psychological context for the main historical actors, so that the actions described become understandable, to the extent that delusional mob behavior can ever be understood.
-- Gavin Wright ― Civil War Book Review *Winner of the Gulf South Historical Association's Michael V.R. Thomason Book Award for best book of the year
*Winner of the Southern Historical Associations Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award for a distinguished book in southern history
During the summer of 1835, mobs in central and Western Mississippi lynched, flogged, and brutalized dozens of men. Initially the mobs attacked those suspected of stealing slaves or, worse, inciting a slave rebellion, but as the violence spread, the focus shifted to men accused of being professional gamblers, and even those who tried to stop the bloodshed found themselves targeted as dangerous and subversive.Flush Times and Fever Dreams recounts these events as never before and reveals the fears, insecurities, and anxieties that fueled them. As Joshua D. Rothman shows, the Mississippi frontier epitomized Americas boom-or-bust mentality in the years leading up to the Panic of 1837. Though promising democratic opportunity, it was also a place of deep distrust and social instability where the attitudes and interests of bankers, lawyers, investors, and politicians barely differed from those of swindlers and gamblers. Rothmans account of the ruthless competition, brutal exploitation, and frenzied speculation driving Mississippis overheated cotton economy portrays a singular place and time in our history, while also telling a story with lessons for our own today.
"Wall Street looms so large for Americans, especially lately, that it's easy to forget that its peculiar characters and culturesfrom bankers and speculators to shysters and swindlersgrew up in the South before the Civil War. By revisiting the Age of Jackson and the land rush following Indian removal, Joshua D. Rothman follows the money to reveal the cultural history of modern American capitalism. A master storyteller and researcher, Rothman digs up amazing (and often hilarious) tales of real strivers who made, missed, and lost fortunes. Flush Times and Fever Dreams reminds us how thin the line has always been between investor and gambler, success and failure."
Scott A. Sandage, author of Born Losers: A History of Failure in America
A dramatic and human narrative of a nearly forgotten timewhen the quest for cotton dominated American commerce, and the expansion of slavery corrupted the American soul.Douglas A. Blackmon, winner of the Pulitzer Prize forSlavery by Another Name
This is at once a cultural history of storytelling, a social history of slavery and slave stealing on the Mississippi, a history of gambling, and a compelling microhistory of a man who couldnt stop trying to narrate himself into fame and fortune. Flush Times and Fever Dreams is a fascinating, well-written, and beautifully plotted book.Scott Reynolds Nelson, author ofSteel Drivin Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend
"The true history of the Cotton Kingdom before the Civil War was no less bizarre and bloody than anything [Django Unchained] has to offer.Flush Times and Fever Dreams . . . reveals that slave owners' wild fantasies had deadly practical consequences."
Daily Beast
Gripping and grisly tales . . . Rothman tells these stories well, evoking a sense of social and psychological context for the main historical actors, so that the actions described become understandable, to the extent that delusional mob behavior can ever be understood.
Civil War Book Review
JOSHUA D. ROTHMAN is a professor of history at the University of Alabama and director of the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South. He is the author ofNotorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families across the Color Line in Virginia, 17871861 and editor ofReforming America, 18151860: A Norton Documents Reader.
Cover design: Erin Kirk New
Cover illustration: Our Peculiar Domestic Institutions. Courtesy Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division
Author photo: Rebecca Rothman
Race in the Atlantic World 1700-1900 logo
A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication
The University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
ISBN 978-0-8203-4681-6
About the Author
JOSHUA D. ROTHMAN is a professor of history at the University of Alabama and director of the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South. He is the author of Notorious in the Neighborhood: Sex and Families across the Color Line in Virginia, 1787–1861 and editor of Reforming America, 1815–1860: A Norton Documents Reader.
