Common whites

At the time of the Civil War, roughly three out of every four southern whites did not own slaves. Most of the rest owned only a few. Until recently, these "common whites" have been largely forgotten. In the past few years, several important studies have examined common whites in individual counties or groups of counties, but they have focused on family life, the economy, or other specific features of the common-white life. Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina is the first comprehensive examination of these non-slaveholders and small slaveholders in over forty years.…