‘As much in bondage as they were before’: unfree labour during the New Deal (1935-1952)

Pizzolato, Nicola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3618-5188 (2016) ‘As much in bondage as they were before’: unfree labour during the New Deal (1935-1952). In: On Coerced Labour. van der Linden, Marcel and Rodríguez García, Magaly, eds. Studies in Global History (25) . Brill, Leiden, pp. 208-224. ISBN 9789004316379. [Book Section] (doi:10.1163/9789004316386_011)

Abstract

This chapter examines peonage, a form of unfree labour, in the US during the New Deal. It puts this practice in a comparative perspective with similar forms of unfree labour practice within the British and French colonies. The US, however, were not intensively scrutinised by the international organisations such as the ILO or the Economic and Social Council of the UN. In the 1950s, some American political activists attempted to bring the US accountable for the practices of unfree labour widespread in the southern states in front of the UN. This articles recounts the aim and outcome of that attempt.

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