Mastered by the Clock is the first work to explore the evolution of clock-based time consciousness in the American South. Challenging traditional assumptions about the plantation economy's reliance on a premodern; nature-based conception of time; Mark M. Smith shows how and why southerners--particularly masters and their slaves--came to view the clock as a legitimate arbiter of time. Drawing on an extraordinary range of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century archival sources; Smith demonstrates that white southern slaveholders began to incorporate this new sense of time in the 1830s. Influenced by colonial merchants' fascination with time thrift; by a long-held familiarity with urban; public time; by the transport and market revolution in the South; and by their own qualified embrace of modernity; slaveowners began to purchase timepieces in growing numbers; adopting a clock-based conception of time and attempting in turn to instill a similar consciousness in their slaves. But; forbidden to own watches themselves; slaves did not internalize this idea to the same degree as their masters; and slaveholders found themselves dependent as much on the whip as on the clock when enforcing slaves' obedience to time. Ironically; Smith shows; freedom largely consolidated the dependence of masters as well as freedpeople on the clock.
#954663 in Books The University of North Carolina Press 1986-08-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.18 x 6.00l; 1.55 #File Name: 0807842249449 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Julia RoseExcellent resource0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Pleased with purchaseBy MargyIn excellent condition; as promised.13 of 14 people found the following review helpful. An Interesting Look at a Complex SocietyBy MR76Tobacco and Slaves is a synthesis that attempts to trace the development of culture in Maryland and Virginia. He approaches this task in three parts; the first is a very detailed survey of demographic and economic development; while the second and third parts analyze the formation of white and black societies. A materialist/New Left framework shapes Kulikoff's interpretations in that he acknowledges that "this work is predicated upon a form of historical materialism that gives material conditions (demography and the economy in particular) a privileged role in the formation of ideologies; classes; and cultures" (16). Additionally; the book's theme centers on the development and relationship of economic classes. Yet; Kulikoff seems to be consciously avoiding a "bottom-up" approach to history that tends to shape much of the work produced by the New Left. Instead; he attempts; sometime awkwardly; to show the whole of Chesapeake society; black and white; as it developed over one hundred twenty years.There is much to praise in this book; the scope of material presented and researched is impressive; and Kulikoff's survey of slave families is quite valuable. One drawback is that his insistence on materialistic causation minimizes human agency and gives short-shrift to the complexities of human motivations and behaviors. Indeed; the materialist model is not entirely satisfactory; but the reader does not need to accept all of Kulikoff's conclusions to appreciate the complexities of Chesapeake society that he so ably presents.
