Slavery and Prostitution in Pre-Civil War America

From Introduction: 'In early-to-mid 19th century America, slave plantation labor was prevalent in the South, while wage labor centered around cities and factories was becoming more common in the North. Robert William Fogel, in his chapter “American Slavery: A flexible, highly developed form of capitalism,” refutes the common conception that the antebellum South had outdated economic and social systems, and instead argues that American slavery was a highly modernized system of capitalism (1). In conjunction with the cotton boom that was supported by the Southern slave plantation labor system, an elite class of male merchants and bankers was emerging in Northern cities such as New York. This growing wealth in cities opened up opportunities for women and girls to become prostitutes. Christine Stansell, in her chapter “Chapter 9 Women on the Town: Sexual Exchange and Prostitution,” asserts that although prostitution is typically viewed as immoral and shameful, it was both “a means of self-support and a way to bargain with men in a situation where a living wage was hard to come by” (2). In this paper, I will compare and contrast enslaved people and prostitutes in the mid-1800s by focusing on their conflicting levels of autonomy and their similar roles as commodities in a broader market. Additionally, I will relate these institutions to modern factory laborers in China and online sex workers on websites such as OnlyFans.'