The Conquest of Labor is the first biography of Daniel Pratt, a New Hampshire native who became one of the South's most important industrialists. After moving to Alabama in 1833 Pratt started a cotton gin factory near Montgomery that by the eve of the Civil War had become the largest in the world. Pratt and his economic agenda-industrialization, chartering banks, building railroads- proved popular in Alabama. Although historians have portrayed Pratt as politically and culturally isolated and at odds with an agrarian region, Evans demonstrates that Pratt succeeded both in utilizing skilled and unskilled southern white labor in his factories and in fashioning a culturally sophisticated town.
- ISBN10 0807126950
- ISBN13 9780807126950
- Publish Date 1 August 2001
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 2 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Louisiana State University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 360
- Language English