‘How can a Poor Man Live?’ Resistance to Capitalist Development in Southern Illinois, 1870–1890.

Abstract

For better than a decade American historians have debated whether or not U.S. farmers were ‘capitalist’ or ‘non-capitalist’ during the nineteenth century. This debate has tended to use market integration as the key index for determining where they should be conceptually located,-although Henretta and Merrill, who fired the opening salvos in the debate, focused more on how farmers understood what they were doing, and Genovese has long insisted that the direct relations of production are the basis for defining specific modes of production. This argument is important not only insofar as it sharpens our knowledge of early American social formations, but also as it aids in interpreting political disputes that occurred on local and national levels.