Prof. Jeremy Zallen: "Dungeons and Dragons of Modernity: Industrial Slavery and the Hidden Origins of Fascism in Antebellum Coal Mines"

Race and Ethnicity in History Lecture Series

This is the first of five lectures by History Department faculty on the theme of "Race and Ethnicity in History." The series is cosponsored by the Dean of Intercultural Development and the Africana Studies Program.

Too often, slavery and industrial modernity have been seen as fundamentally incompatible. It is a comforting myth, underpinning a faith in markets, capitalism, and progress that has nothing to do with either coercion or racism. As I will explore in this talk, however, it is a myth based on a highly selective and distorted reading of the past. By closely examining the work and social relations of the pre-Civil War Richmond coal industry through the lens of a catastrophic mining accident, this talk will show how emblems of modernity like gaslight, fluid free labor markets, and life insurance existed not in spite of racial slavery, but because of that enslavement. By placing slavery at the center of an honest accounting of the history of capitalism, even industrial capitalism, I also hope to spark new debate about the centrality of racial slavery under fascism in particular, and the persistent co-existence of free and unfree labor in racial capitalism more generally.