Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century America

by Eric Foner

`Freedom' has never been a fixed category or predetermined concept. Subject to multiple interpretations, its definition has been created and recreated by historical contingencies and social conflicts. Eric Foner traces how the existence of slavery helped to shape the understanding of freedom by Americans both white and black from the colonial era to the end of Reconstruction. He pays particular attention to the metaphorical uses of `slavery' by groups seeking to expand prevailing definitions of freedom (such as the labour movement's critique of `wage slavery', and criticism of the `slavery of sex' by early feminists) as well as to the debate over the meaning of freedom unleashed by the destruction of slavery during the Civil War.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Eric Foner is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, Foner focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America. His Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, won the Bancroft, Parkman, and Los Angeles Times Book prizes and remains the standard history of the period. His latest book published in 2010 is The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

In 2006 Foner received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching at Columbia University. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Society of American Historians.