The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States, 1853-1861 [B1944]

2017 pb reprint of the 1861 abolitionist classic original. In 1853, Frederick Law Olmsted was working for the New York Times when he journeyed to the southern slave states of the U.S. and wrote one of the most important pro-abolition discourses. The Cotton Kingdom recounts his daily observations of the curse of slavery: the poverty it brought to both black and white people; the inadequacies of the plantation system; and the economic consequences and problems associated with America's most "peculiar institution". Disproving the opinion that "Cotton is king", Olmsted examined the huge differences between the economies of the northern and southern states, contrasting the more successful, wealthy and progressive north with the stubborn south, convinced of the necessity of slavery. Hailed as one of the most convincing and influential anti-slavery arguments, Olmsted's work was widely praised with London's Westminster Review declaring, "it is impossible to resist his accumulated evidence."

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture. Through his work as a journalist for the New York Daily Times (New York Times), he became interested in the adverse economic effects of slavery and The Cotton Kingdom is a result of this.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Occasionally one encounters a person or a book that changes how they see and understand the world. This is one of those rare, rare books for me."; "I really love history and I really like this book. Author was a well known landscape gardener and I certainly have enjoyed walking through his parks. Now I am enjoying his book which is a collection of articles/dispatches he wrote as a travel correspondent for the NYT. He gets right into the personality of all the people he meets along his journeys and writes as they spoke 160 years ago. Fascinating analysis of the slavery issue, which he argues against. He also comments on the prejudice shown towards the recent Irish and German immigrants that he sees along the way. Very good history reading."; "Marvelous. It's wonderful to read a personal first-hand account of this era in US history. The insights, even though not all that objective, are gems. It's a delight to read and has given me a different perspective on the antebellum South."; "Totally unexpected lively travelogue through the antebellum south. The best view into what it was like in the towns and farms of the southern states from a perspective not given in typical retrospectives. Olmsted's anecdotes draw a vivid picture that only comes from the first hand experience of a primary source!"