PUBLIC-SCHOOL EXPENDITURES IN THE PLANTATION STATES, 1910

Although white children in the postbellum South benefited from the diversion of black school funds, both races had measures of schooling below the national norm. In particular, plantation states had the least commitment to public school systems. This paper theorizes that the tendency for education to create geographical and occupational mobility ran counter to the interests of southern landlords. It shows that agricultural production based on unskilled and highly supervised tenant farming was a major reason for the slow acceptance of universal free schooling in the plantation region of the United States. © 1991.