One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928

A chronicle one of the harshest, most exploitative labor systems in American history

In his seminal study of convict leasing in the post-Civil War South, Matthew J. Mancini chronicles one of the harshest, most exploitative labor systems in American history. Devastated by war, bewildered by peace, and unprepared to confront the problems of prison management, Southern states sought to alleviate the need for cheap labor, a perceived rise in criminal behavior, and the bankruptcy of their state t...