501 pp., 6.125 x 9.25
Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina
Burton traces the evolution of Edgefield County from the antebellum period through Reconstruction and beyond. From amassed information on every household in this large rural community, he tests the many generalizations about southern black and white families of this period and finds that they were strikingly similar. Wealth, rather than race or class, was the main factor that influenced family structure, and the matriarchal family was but a myth.
"A highly quantified, computerized, and methodologically sophisticated study. . . . For thoroughness and comprehensiveness, it rivals, if it does not exceed, any historical investigation of an American community of comparable scope."
--New York Review of Books
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