Seth Rockman's Blog

I am so excited to share my new book with you this fall. I've been working on this book for more than a decade and it is the product of archival work in a dozen states.

The book continues my earlier explorations of the intertwined histories of slavery and capitalism, but on a national scale and through a material culture methodology that makes interregional connections visible through mundane manufactured goods such as hats, hoes, shovels, shoes, and textiles.

In following these goods from the communities in which they were made to the communities in which they were used, Plantation Goods rethinks the geography of slavery and freedom in the decades between American independence and the Civil War.

The book poses questions that continue to preoccupy us in the age of the iPhone and fair-trade coffee: what are the moral, ecological, and political relationships linking consumers and producers across long distances? What does it mean to be “complicit"?

The book answers these questions by bringing diverse lives and livelihoods, North and South, into a common frame through ordinary artifacts. At the same time, the book recognizes material culture's capacity to shape the bodily experiences of labor as well as the shifting meanings of racial difference in a slaveholding nation.

In the coming weeks, I'll share more with you about the book, including a set of tour dates for November and December 2024 and early 2025. Thank you for reading!