Working on the Dock of the Bay: Labor and Life alongCharleston's Waterfront, 1783-1861 Public
Thompson, Michael David (2009)
Abstract
Working on the Dock of the Bay: Labor and Life along Charleston's Waterfront, 1783-1861 By Michael D. Thompson This dissertation focuses on waterfront workers in Charleston, South Carolina, from the city's incorporation in 1783 to the Civil War. Those who labored upon the wharves and transported goods to and from the waterfront - including stevedores, dock hands, porters, draymen, and carters - were indispensable to the city's commercial maritime economy. I highlight the continuous struggle over the terms of waterfront work, and how the repeated efforts of employers and municipal and state authorities to control and dominate the labor and lives of Charleston's most important workforce was met with vigorous resistance. I survey these dock workers and the work they did, including hiring practices, the work process, labor conditions, and wages. Also considered is the relationship between race, class, and ethnicity in an antebellum southern port which employed black slaves, free blacks, native-born whites, and immigrant whites. After studying the enslaved workers who dominated wharf labor since the colonial period, I trace the changing racial and ethnic composition of Charleston's waterfront workforce during the 1840s and 1850s. I then examine labor competition between the city's black and white wharf laborers, and analyze how the deadly yellow fever epidemics of the late antebellum period impacted this contest for employment on the docks.
Table of Contents
Introduction1
Chapters
One"using violent exercise in warm weather": The Waterfront Labor Experience 10
Two"almost the whole of the working population are Negroes":
Charleston's Enslaved Waterfront Workers 81
Three"laborers from abroad have come to take their places": The Racial
and Ethnic Diversification of the Waterfront Workforce 137
Four"the unacclimated stranger should be positively prohibited from
joining the party": The Impact of Yellow Fever Epidemics on
Waterfront Labor Competition 195
Five "some rascally business": Theft and Worker Pilferage from
Charleston 's Wharves: A Reflection upon Themes 256
Postscript 313
Maps 322
Tables 325
Abbreviations in Notes 326
Bibliography 327
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