Writing

Southern Heretics: The Making of the Republican Party in the Border South (In Progress)

MacKay’s forthcoming book will be the first full-length study of the Republican party in the Border South states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri during the Civil War era. Exploring how antislavery southerners attempted to form a distinct antislavery Republican identity in these slave states during the antebellum period, this book will explore how this identity was transformed by the Civil War, and was constantly shaped and reshaped during the political, social, and economic transformation of Reconstruction. MacKay’s research documents the overlooked political influence of Border South Republicans on national political issues, arguing that these “Southern heretics” played an crucial role in nineteenth century American political history.

Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race Class, and Power

Edited by Matthew Hild and Keri Leigh Merritt (University Press of Florida, 2018)

The American Dream of reaching success through sheer sweat and determination rings false for countless members of the working classes. This volume shows that many of the difficulties facing workers today have deep roots in the history of the exploitation of labor in the South. Contributors make the case that the problems that have long beset southern labor, including the legacy of slavery, low wages, lack of collective bargaining rights, and repression of organized unions, have become the problems of workers across the country.  
 
Spanning nearly all of U.S. history, the essays in this collection range from West Virginia to Florida to Texas. They examine vagrancy laws in the early republic, inmate labor at state penitentiaries, mine workers and union membership, and strikes and the often-violent strikebreaking that followed. They also look at pesticide exposure among farmworkers, labor activism during the civil rights movement, and foreign-owned auto factories in the rural South. They distinguish between different struggles experienced by women and men, as well as by African American, Latino, and white workers.  
 
The broad chronological sweep and comprehensive nature of Reconsidering Southern Labor History set this volume apart from any other collection on the topic in the past forty years. Presenting the latest trends in the study of the working-class South by a new generation of scholars, this volume is a surprising revelation of the historical forces behind the labor inequalities inherent today.  

Order here: https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813056975