Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South / Edition 1

by Mark M. Smith

Overview

Mastered by the Clock is the first work to explore the evolution of clock-based time consciousness in the American South. Challenging traditional assumptions about the plantation economy's reliance on a premodern, nature-based conception of time, Mark M. Smith shows how and why southerners—particularly masters and their slaves—came to view the clock as a legitimate arbiter of time. Drawing on an extraordinary range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century archival sources, Smith demonstrates that white southern slaveholders began to incorporate this new sense of time in the 1830s. Influenced by colonial merchants' fascination with time thrift, by a long-held familiarity with urban, public time, by the transport and market revolution in the South, and by their own qualified embrace of modernity, slaveowners began to purchase timepieces in growing numbers, adopting a clock-based conception of time and attempting in turn to instill a similar consciousness in their slaves. But, forbidden to own watches themselves, slaves did not internalize this idea to the same degree as their masters, and slaveholders found themselves dependent as much on the whip as on the clock when enforcing slaves' obedience to time. Ironically, Smith shows, freedom largely consolidated the dependence of masters as well as freedpeople on the clock.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807846933
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	10/20/1997
Series:	Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
Edition description:	1
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.73(d)
Lexile:	1610L (what's this?)

About the Author

Mark M. Smith is Carolina Distinguished Professor of History at the University of South Carolina.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction. Time in Southern Slave Society
Chapter 1. Times Democratic: Clocks, Watches, Makers, and Owners, 1700-1900
Chapter 2. Taming Time's Pinions, Weaving Time's Web: Of Times Natural, Sacred, and Secular, 1700-1900
Chapter 3. Apostles of Progress, Agents of Time: Consolidating Time Consciousness in the South, 1750-1865
Chapter 4. Master Time, 1750-1865
Chapter 5. Time in African American Work and Culture
Chapter 6. New South, Old Time
Epilogue. Times Hegemonic: Standard Time
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Illustrations
St. Michael's Church and clock, Charleston, South Carolina
Death, God, and St. Philip's clock, Charleston, South Carolina
Timing Life: A physician taking the pulse of his patient, ca. 1860s
A country couple, Donald McHood and Frances Hood, ca. 1860, with watch chain
Overseer's house and bell, Hampton Plantation, Maryland
Plantation bell at Thornhill, Alabama
Barn at Bremo Plantation, Fluvanna County, Virginia
A black slave driver with a watch chain, 1829
African American grave with clock, Sea Islands, South Carolina, 1933

Figures
1. Timepiece Ownership in Charleston District and Laurens County, South Carolina, 1739-1860
2. Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders in Charleston District and Laurens County, South Carolina, 1739-1860

Tables
1. Clock and Watch Ownership and Average Values of Both in Charleston District, 1739-1865, and Laurens County, South Carolina, 1788-1865
2. New York and South Carolina Timepiece Ownership Compared, 1739-1889
3. The Recommended Allocation of Time for Southern Children, 1853
4. Small and Yeoman Planters Owning Clocks and Watches in Laurens County, South Carolina, 1805-1843
A.1. Distribution of Timepiece Makers by Time and Region in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, 1666-1881
A.2. Geographical Mobility among Southern Timepiece Makers by Number of Separate Working Establishments during Working Life, 1666-1881
A.3. Regional and National Origins of Timepiece Makers Working in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, Combined, 1666-1881
A.4. Emigration of Timepiece Makers from South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, Combined, 1666-1881
A.5. Specialization among Timepiece Makers in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and Combined, 1666-1881
A.6. Division of Labor in Timepiece-Making Establishments in Southern Colonies and States, 1666-1881
A.7. Clock and Watch Manufacturing in Southern States, 1810-1870
A.8. Clock and Watch Manufacturing in Northern and Middle States, 1810-1870
A.9. Number of Timepiece Repairers, Importers, Makers, and Those in Partnerships in South Carolina, 1699-1901
A.10. American Clock Makers by Region, 1650-1860s
A.11. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Charleston District, 1739-1744
A.12. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Charleston District, 1763-1767
A.13. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Charleston District, 1783-1787
A.14. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Charleston District, 1805-1810
A.15. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Charleston District, 1839-1844
A.16. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Charleston District, 1863-December 31, 1865
A.17. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership, Charleston District, January 1, 1866-1867
A.18. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership, Charleston District, 1883-1886
A.19. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Laurens County, South Carolina, 1788-1796
A.20. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Laurens County, South Carolina, 1805-1809
A.21. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Laurens County, South Carolina, 1839-1843
A.22. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Laurens County, South Carolina, 1863-December 31, 1865
A.23. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership among Slaveholders and Nonslaveholders, Laurens County, South Carolina, January 1, 1866-December 31, 1867
A.24. Wealth Levels and Timepiece Ownership, Laurens County, South Carolina, 1880-1889
A.25. Clock and Watch Ownership and Average Values of Both in Charleston District, 1866-1886, and Laurens County, South Carolina, 1866-1889

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Delightfully original. . . . A sophisticated, imaginative addition to our understanding of the nineteenth-century South.—Journal of Interdisciplinary History



Fascinating. . . . An engaging work that should draw the serious attention of scholars and laymen interested in the history of technology as well as general history. It provides yet another reminder that in very basic ways colonists trekking across the Atlantic had much in common in spite of their different destinations.—Technology & Culture



Its elegant argument and its deft use of evidence, brought to bear on a genuinely new topic, seem certain to make Mastered by the Clock a central contributor to debates on the nature of the antebellum South."Georgia Historical Quarterly



Readable, imaginative, and innovative, this study casts the Old South and its plantations in a new light. Scholars will be debating the extent of Smith's findings for some time."American Historical Review



If the measure of a significant book is that it is read, discussed, debated, reread, and not forgotten, then Mark Smith's first book exceeds the standards. It is an engaging book by a young scholar whose work certainly justifies his own time spent in producing it.—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society



[Smith] offers an intriguing take on a familiar problem—whether slavery is primarily capitalist of precapitalist—by looking at something that previous historians have never considered important. This originality makes Smith's conclusions important and thoughtprovoking. Mastered by the Clock deserves close attention and is a worthy achievement.—-Australasian Journal of American Studies



Strikingly original. . . . This impressive book merits serious attention.—Agricultural History



Mark M. Smith's Mastered by the Clock is an interesting, lively study that suggests how (mostly antebellum) southern whites' appreciation of clock-segmented time reveals their claim on the modern temperament.—Journal of American History



An imaginative, pioneering study of the culture of time, time measurement and management in the slave South from the eighteenth century through the Reconstruction era, with particular emphasis on the middle decades of the nineteenth century. . . . Mastered by the Clock is an impressive study. Set within a sophisticated historiographical frame, it contributes to the cultural history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American on several planes.—Journal of the Early Republic



Excellent. . . . This original and very stimulating study is well researched and nicely presented.—South Carolina Historical Magazine

Editorial Reviews

Mark M. Smith s "Mastered by the Clock" is an interesting, lively study.

"Journal of American History"

Mark M. Smith 's "Mastered by the Clock" is an interesting, lively study.

"Journal of American History"

Mark M. Smith_s "Mastered by the Clock" is an interesting, lively study.

"Journal of American History"

Mark M. Smitha[s "Mastered by the Clock" is an interesting, lively study.

"Journal of American History"

A sophisticated, imaginative addition to our understanding of the nineteenth-century South.

"Journal of Interdisciplinary History"

Mark M. Smiths "Mastered by the Clock" is an interesting, lively study.

"Journal of American History"

Readable, imaginative, and innovative, this study casts the Old South and its plantations in a new light.

"American Historical Review"

"A sophisticated, imaginative addition to our understanding of the nineteenth-century South.

"Journal of Interdisciplinary History""

"Mark M. SmithUs "Mastered by the Clock" is an interesting, lively study.

"Journal of American History""

"Readable, imaginative, and innovative, this study casts the Old South and its plantations in a new light.

"American Historical Review""

An engaging work that should draw the serious attention of scholars and laymen interested in the history of technology .

"Technology & Culture"

This impressive book merits serious attention.

"Agricultural History"

From the Publisher