OR perhaps, he just agreed with you to keep from having to deal with a FOOL! (other than here on FR WBTS threads,and especially around the college, i go out of my way to avoid fools & their foolishness. i suspect i'm not the only one who avaoids LOONIES!)
my point is that no matter what the source is that proves the damnyankees are FILTH,SCUM,LIARS & EVIL, you LIE about it,DENY what the source states, state that it's a bad source, ignore it and/or you ridicule the source.
that's what HATERS do and you are the very essense of the word, HATER.
why not head over to DU??? they like HATERS/FOOLS/TROLLS over there & they, i predict, will welcome you with open arms.
free dixie,sw
Okay, here's Dr. Stephen Lubar's e-mail address: lubars@nmah.si.edu
And here's the original question I sent, which I think pretty evenhandedly presented the argument:
Dr. Lubar--
I'm currently engaged in an online debate with someone concerning the mechanization of cotton farming and its role in southern society. Specifically, just when practical, efficient machinery was developed to replace hand picking. My opponent claims that this machinery was available in the 1850s, along with steam and coal-oil driven tractors, and that had the south not been impoverished by the Civil War, it would have adopted these machines by, say, 1875. This would have led to a voluntary emancipation of the slaves by the south at that time.
My position is that practical tractors weren't available until the 1910s, when the internal combustion tractors came into production, and that the steam tractors were relatively unusual anywhere in the U.S., and weren't commonly owned by farmers and instead were operated by crews who followed the harvests with their equipment and were hired by farmers. Further, I contend that practical cotton harvesting machinery wasn't developed until the late 1930s/1940s by the Rust brothers and that the adoption of this machinery came pretty quickly to the cotton industry once the machinery was available.
My opponent has cited you as an expert, so I turn to you for your opinion.
Sincerely,
And here's Lubar's response:
"I'm no expert on this topic at all, but I am pretty certain that you are correct on all counts. THe expert on the subject is my former colleague at the Smithsonian, Pete Daniel. You might want to address the question to him at danielp@si.edu."
Forwarding the same question to Daniel, here's his response:
Historians continue to disagree about the pace of mechanization in the South, and my work has pointed out that in some respects the commodity being mechanized is one of the most important factors. In Breaking the Land: The Transformation of Cotton, Tocacco and Rice Cultures since 1880, I looked at these commodity cultures and, among other issues, attempted to weigh the factors in mechanization.
There were, I would argue, no machines available in the nineteenth century that would have transformed southern cotton cultivation from labor to machine-intensive operations. Steam traction engines were poorly equipped for plowing but were used primarily for belt work. Mules would pull the plows until tractor ownership spread in the twentieth century.
It would be difficult to argue a counterfactural thesis that mechanization would have ended slavery, for there were other political considerations that weighed on the minds of slave owners and the white population.
Although there were numerous attempts to mechanize cotton picking, most were not successful until the 1930s with the Rust Brothers and then development work on the Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, by International Harvester during World War II. Finally, herbicides that emerged after World War II ended the need for a large cotton chopping crew. With tractors breaking the land and cultivating, herbicides doing the weeding, and mechanical picking machines doing the picking, cotton cultivation was totally mechanized. The crucial ingredients in this process, herbicides and the picking machine, came during and after World War II.
The South was highly mechanized, which goes against most mythological treatments of its history. Agricultural censuses reveal steam engines, water powered mills, and mule-drawn appratuses, and there was a large cadre of skilled workers, black and white, to keep them going. When automobiles and tractors appeared, there was no shortage of mechanics to tinker on them.
The questions that you are raising are extremely complex, and my reply is necessarily superficial. As I mentioned, historians continue to disagree on the pace of mechanziation. Still, I hope that my reply has been of use.
Pete Daniel
It's pretty funny that you're now trying to deny that I even wrote to Lubar, or that he responded, or that I somehow misinterpreted his response, when I posted the response in its entirety along with a number of challenges to you to write to Lubar yourself, which you declined. So here it is for all to see, and anyone who wants to write to Lubar or Daniel at the Smithsonian to see if I've fabricated or misstated anything is free to do so. I'll also forward the e-mails in their original format, with all the headers and routing information to anyone who requests it.
Meanwhile, let's see you put up a single bit of original evidence that only 5-6% of southern families owned slaves, using the standards fo evidence that you insist on.
"The Shermans [in 1876] entertained fewer guests in St. Louis, but former army officers passing through town stopped with them. David F. Boyd visited for several days. So too did John B. Hood, 'tall, full bearded and handsome with a sad face.' he had become friendly with Sherman during the visit to New Orleans in April 1871 that led to the southern and northern editorials imploring Sherman to run against Grant. When the life insurance company of which [Hood] was president collapsed, he came to St. Louis to see Sherman about selling his Civil War papers to the War Department, which argued they belonged to the government, anyway. Hood was so taken with Lizzie [Sherman's niece] that he left the papers with her. Lizzie later turned them over to Senator Randall Gibson of Louisiana, who handled the sale to the government."
"Former Confederate generals were among the most frequent visitors to the [Sherman] house on 15th Street. General Joseph Johnston, remembered by the young Cump as 'rather small and prim, but eminently soldierly,' often stopped by with his wife, and Sherman enjoyed his many long conversations with them. One evening, when the Johnstons dropped in, Mrs. Johnston told Sherman: "Well, General, during the war I spent all my time running away from you; but now it seems that I am spending all my time running after you.' Two of Sherman's favorites were Generals Longstreet and Joseph Wheeler. In an effort to preserve Lee's reputation, Southern writers were blaming Longstreet for the disaster at Gettysburg, but Sherman and other Union generals refused to believe these stories and praised him lavishly. Sherman grew particularly close to Wheeler, then serving in congress, and in letters addressed him as 'My dear friend.' Sherman always insisted that Wheeler did at least half of the damage in Georgia, even though Southerners blamed it all on the Yankees."
"Standing on the steps of Sherman's house after the casket had been brought out, Joe Johnston, one of the pall bearers, stood in the bitter cold with his head uncovered. Warned he would catch cold, he answered: 'If I were in his place and he standing here in mine, he would not put on his hat.' Johnston caught cold at the funeral and died the next month."
And as you are well aware, Generals Grant and Buckner, despite being on opposing sides, remained friends, even in war (Grant offered Buckner "his purse" after the capture of Fort Donelson). Buckner, too, was a pall bearer at Grant's funeral.
It seems to me that if intractable enemies on the battlefield can put the hate and hate-filled rhetoric behind them, others should be able to follow suit.