ONE DIES, GET ANOTHER: CONVICT LEASING IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, 1866-1928, by Matthew J. Mancini (University of South Carolina Press, 296 pages, $34.95).
One of the most exploitative labor systems in America’s history is chronicled in this study of the convict leasing that occurred after the Civil War, when the South,overwhelmed by its efforts to rebuild and to deal with such consequences of the conflict as the bankruptcy of the state treasuries and a rising crime rate, began to lease prisoners to businessmen, corporations, and planters for work on sugar and cotton plantations and in phosphate beds, coal mines, brickyards, and sawmills. Mancini chronicles the practice, state by state, examining why, in spite of laws, constitutional provisions, and court decisions banning the leasing of convicts, the policy continued for 62 years.
