The cotton kingdom
Subtitle: a traveller's observations on cotton and slavery in the American slave states : based upon three former volumes of journeys and investigations by the same author
By: by Frederick Law Olmsted ; edited with an introduction by Arthur M. Schlesinger.
Contributors: Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, 1888-1965.
Edition: 1st Da Capo Press ed.
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 626
Subjects: Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822-1903; Slavery -- Southern States; Cotton growing -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century; Southern States -- Description and travel; Southern States -- Economic conditions
Description: Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) is best known for designing New York City's Central Park, and parks in Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, and Washington. But before he embarked upon his career as the nation's foremost landscape architect, he was a correspondent for The New York Times, and it was under its auspices that he journeyed through the slave states in the 1850s.

His day-by-day observations - including intimate accounts of the daily lives of masters and slaves, the operation of the plantation system, and the pernicious effects of slaves on all classes of society, black and white - were largely collected in the Cotton Kingdom. Published in 1861, just as the Southern states were storming out of the Union, it has been hailed ever since as singularly fair and authentic, an unparalleled account of America's "peculiar institution."
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 623-626) and index.
Originally published: New York : Knopf, 1953.