Seth Rockman’s Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore examines the economics of the working class in early republic Baltimore. The book speaks to economic history, social history, labor history, the history of the South, and gender history. Rockman wants to know what life was like for the average person in the early republic and how that differed from the groups historians typically examine in this period.
Rockman argues, “Early republic capitalism thrived on its ability to exploit the labor of workers unable fully to claim the prerogatives of market freedom.” Rockman structures his work around examinations of different types of work, from drudgery, like on the mud machine, to women’s work, in the form of sewing and domestic service, to the options available to the poor. While much history of the early republic focuses on the new opportunities, Rockman demonstrates that, in Baltimore, the employers were the most opportunistic, relying on a combination of free and slave labor from men, women, and children. Rockman’s analysis of women’s work offers a counterpoint to the usual narrative of Republican Motherhood. He writes of female labor, “Reputation could trump both skill and demographic background as a qualification for hire.” Rockman continues, “The creation of knowledge around women was particularly problematic in a patriarchal culture that reduced female character to sexual chastity and condoned misogynistic violence against ‘disorderly’ women.” After a woman had secured a job and navigated the intricacies of the gendered system, she still might not receive a decent wage. Rockman writes, “Women acting collectively in the early republic had to carefully navigate the gender boundaries of American society…Arguing from the position of motherhood enabled some women to make claims on government.” Even then, however, their options were limited in a society that continued to view men as the primary wage earners and considered women’s work a temporary measure until they married.
Rockman’s discussion of slavery in Baltimore draws heavily upon Walter Johnson’s capitalist examination of chattel slavery. Rockman argues against historians such as Gordon Wood, Joyce Appleby, and Daviel Walker Howe who argued that “political democratization and economic posperity went hand-in-hand” in the early republic. Rockman relies on tax records, letters, and job advertisements for his source base. He frequently writes that the individuals upon whom he focuses left very few records as most did not earn enough in their day-to-day living to appear on the tax records. Payroll records often omitted the names of employees as well. ( )