In 1901, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, sent an expedition to the German colony of Togo in West Africa, with the purpose of transforming the region into a cotton economy similar to that of the post-Reconstruction American South. Alabama in Africa explores the politics of labor, sexuality, and race behind this endeavor, and the economic, political, and intellectual links connecting Germany, Africa, and the southern United States. The cross-fertilization of histories and practices led to the emergence of a global South, reproduced social inequities on both sides of the Atlantic, and pushed the American South and the German Empire to the forefront of modern colonialism.
Zimmerman shows how the people of Togo, rather than serving as a blank slate for American and German ideologies, helped shape their region's place in the global South. He looks at the forms of resistance pioneered by African American freedpeople, Polish migrant laborers, African cotton cultivators, and other groups exploited by, but never passive victims of, the growing colonial political economy. Zimmerman reconstructs the social science of the global South formulated by such thinkers as Max Weber and W.E.B. Du Bois, and reveals how their theories continue to define contemporary race, class, and culture.
Tracking the intertwined histories of Europe, Africa, and the Americas at the turn of the century, Alabama in Africa shows how the politics and economics of the segregated American South significantly reshaped other areas of the world.
Andrew Zimmerman is professor of history at George Washington University and the author of Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations vii Preface ix INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: Cotton, the "Negro Question," and Industrial Education in the New South 20 Cotton and Coercion 23 Growing Cotton in the Old South and the New 32 The "Negro Question" and the New South 38 Hampton Institute: From Colonial Education to Industrial Education 40 Tuskegee Institute: An Ambivalent Challenge to the New South 45 Booker T. Washington's Pan-Africanism and the Turn to Empire 61
CHAPTER 2: Sozialpolitik and the New South in Germany 66 German Social Thought and the American Civil War 67 Emancipation and Free Labor in Germany 70 Germany's New South: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Freedom of Free Labor 73 German Settlers and Polish Migrants: Internal Colonization and the Struggle over Labor, Sexuality, and Race 80 Social Democracy versus Internal Colonization and State Socialism 95 Race and the "Dark Urge for Personal Freedom": Max Weber and W.E.B. Du Bois 100
CHAPTER 3: Alabama in Africa: Tuskegee and the Colonial Decivilizing Mission in Togo 112 Togo between Atlantic Slavery and German Colonial Rule 113 Mission Schools, White-Collar Work, and Political Resistance 123 Ewe Education and German Colonial Rule 128 Cotton, Conquest, and the Southern Turn of Colonial Rule 130 From Colonial Africans to New South "Negroes" 139 Tuskegee Educators and African Households 144 The Transformation of Togolese Cotton 148 Undoing the Exodus: The Colonial Decivilizing Mission at the Notsé Cotton School 153 Missionary Education and Industrial Education in Togo 162 German Internal Colonization and American Sharecropping in Togo 166
CHAPTER 4: From a German Alabama in Africa to a Segregationist International: The League of Nations and the Global South 173 E. D. Morel, Congo Reform, and the German-Tuskegee Colonial Model 176 Booker T. Washington, Congo Reform, and Industrial Education in Africa 179 The Negerfrage in Germany: Colonial Policy, Colonial Social Science, and Colonial Scandals 187 Social Democracy versus the Civilizing Mission 197 The Versailles Treaty and the Segregationist International 198
CHAPTER 5: From Industrial Education for the New South to a Sociology of the Global South 205 Max Weber, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois 207 From "Teaching the Negro to Work" to the "Protestant Ethic" 212 Sociology for the Old South and the New 217 Robert E. Park, from Germany to Africa to Tuskegee and Back Again 219 From the Global South to the Chicago School of Sociology 222 The Great Migration and the Transformation of Sociology 227 CONCLUSION: Prussian Paths of Capitalist Development: The Tuskegee Expedition to Togo between Transnational and Comparative History 237
This conceptually sophisticated, empirically rich, and genuinely transnational book mines sources on three different continents and exposes a dense network of connections and comparisons. It makes original contributions to German, American, and African history, as well as to the history of the social sciences. James T. Campbell, author of "Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa"
Weitz
Zimmerman has written a superb book about the transfer of knowledge from North America to Germany to West Africa. He has written an Atlantic history that connects East Prussia, Togo, and the American South. Zimmerman writes insightfully about economics, social relations, and the origins of sociology. This is a model of the new global history. Eric D. Weitz, University of Minnesota
Geoff Eley
Zimmerman's compelling and beautifully executed book is an innovative tracking of the interrelations among free labor, race, and social science, linking Germany, Africa, and the United States. This is a groundbreaking book, one that will have a major impact. Geoff Eley, University of Michigan
From the Publisher
"This conceptually sophisticated, empirically rich, and genuinely transnational book mines sources on three different continents and exposes a dense network of connections and comparisons. It makes original contributions to German, American, and African history, as well as to the history of the social sciences."—James T. Campbell, author of Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa"Zimmerman's compelling and beautifully executed book is an innovative tracking of the interrelations among free labor, race, and social science, linking Germany, Africa, and the United States. This is a groundbreaking book, one that will have a major impact."—Geoff Eley, University of Michigan"Zimmerman has written a superb book about the transfer of knowledge from North America to Germany to West Africa. He has written an Atlantic history that connects East Prussia, Togo, and the American South. Zimmerman writes insightfully about economics, social relations, and the origins of sociology. This is a model of the new global history."—Eric D. Weitz, University of Minnesota