Full Citation
Title: Land Endowments, Child Labor, and the Rise of Public Schooling: Evidence from Racial Inequality in the U.S. South
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2009
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Black children born in the U.S. South in 1910 attended inferior schools and received threefewer years of education than their white peers. These racial differences diminished significantlyin the following three decades, most notably in the Cotton Belt. Moreover, there wasno major federal policy targeted at black schools during this period. I propose that the demandfor child labor can explain these trends in racial inequality. To test this explanation, I digitizearchival school district data and combine them with data on cotton production. I argue thatprior to 1910, the demands of cotton crowded out black schooling in this region because (1)its land endowments were conducive to growing cotton, (2) growing it was particularly childlaborintensive, and (3) black children were more frequently employed than white children.School boards under invested in black schools as a result of the demand for black child laborby both white landowners and black parents. I provide evidence that black-white differences inpublic school quality in 1910 were larger in cotton-growing regions of the South than in otherwisecomparable non-cotton growing regions. I also show that most of these racial differencesnarrowed during two periods: (1) the early 1920s slowdown of cotton production, and (2) beginningin the mid-1930s when New Deal policy indirectly discouraged cotton share tenancyand consequently suppressed demand for child labor. These results suggest a reinterpretationof how institutions developed during the Jim Crow era by emphasizing land endowments andchild labor, which in turn has consequences for black well being during the 20th century.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Greenbaum, Jeffrey
Publisher: University of California, Berkeley
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education, Poverty and Welfare, Race and Ethnicity
Countries: