- Dept of History
University of Georgia
LeConte Hall, 250 Baldwin St
Athens, GA 30602
Scott Nelson
The University of Georgia, History, Faculty Member
- College of William and Mary, Lyon G. Tyler Department of History, Faculty Memberadd
- History, Southern Studies (U.S. South), American Civil War, Nineteenth Century Studies, American History, Political Economy, and 21 moreAfrican American Studies, Transatlantic History, Social History, Financial Economics, Economic History, Folklore, History of Slavery, Business History, Labor History and Studies, Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Financial History (History), Great Depression, Commodity Chains, International Humanitarian Law and Protection of Civilians, Intellectual History, Race and Racism, Literary Criticism, Renaissance Humanism, Literature and Philosophy, History of Classical Scholarship, and Herman Melvilleedit
- Trained in US labor, African-American, and financial history in the 1980s I have broadened into history of science, c... moreTrained in US labor, African-American, and financial history in the 1980s I have broadened into history of science, cultural history, and the broader history of the 19th century world.edit
The ballad "John Henry" is the most recorded folk song in American history and John Henry--the mighty railroad man who could blast through rock faster than a steam drill--is a towering figure in our culture. In Steel Drivin' Man, Scott... more
The ballad "John Henry" is the most recorded folk song in American history and John Henry--the mighty railroad man who could blast through rock faster than a steam drill--is a towering figure in our culture.
In Steel Drivin' Man, Scott Reynolds Nelson recounts the true story of the man behind the iconic American hero, telling the poignant tale of a young Virginia convict who died working on one of the most dangerous enterprises of the time, the first rail route through the Appalachian Mountains.
In Steel Drivin' Man, Scott Reynolds Nelson recounts the true story of the man behind the iconic American hero, telling the poignant tale of a young Virginia convict who died working on one of the most dangerous enterprises of the time, the first rail route through the Appalachian Mountains.
Research Interests:
From the merchant William Duer’s attempts to speculate on post–Revolutionary War debt, to an ill-conceived 1815 plan to sell English coats to Americans on credit, to the debt-fueled railroad expansion that precipitated the Panic of 1857,... more
From the merchant William Duer’s attempts to speculate on post–Revolutionary War debt, to an ill-conceived 1815 plan to sell English coats to Americans on credit, to the debt-fueled railroad expansion that precipitated the Panic of 1857, A Nation of Deadbeats (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), by Scott Reynolds Nelson, offers a crash course in the history of financial panics in the U.S. — and a concise explanation of the first principles that caused them all.
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During Reconstruction, an alliance of southern planters and northern capitalists rebuilt the southern railway system using remnants of the Confederate railroads that had been built and destroyed during the Civil War. In the process of... more
During Reconstruction, an alliance of southern planters and northern capitalists rebuilt the southern railway system using remnants of the Confederate railroads that had been built and destroyed during the Civil War. In the process of linking Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia by rail, this alliance created one of the largest corporations in the world, engendered bitter political struggles, and transformed the South in lasting ways, says Scott Nelson.
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Quentin Tarantino's Django relies on tropes that have long been a part of the working-class African-American memory of slavery and its aftermath.
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The South" or "the southland" or the "southern states" were understandable abstractions before the Civil War, often used by railway promoters in construction projects that were "nearly complete." Promoters saw the "South" as a region that... more
The South" or "the southland" or the "southern states" were understandable abstractions before the Civil War, often used by railway promoters in construction projects that were "nearly complete." Promoters saw the "South" as a region that could be bound together by railroads and given access to the West...Taken together, this network of routes cultivated by the Confederacy may have been the rebellion's most lasting geographical and physical legacy.
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syllabus for History 351: The Gilded Age
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compares panic of 1873 to 2008 downturn: both began with mortgage bubbles and ended in depression
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Compares panic of 1873 and the financial crisis of 2008. Went viral on October 1, 2008 and translated (online) in 12 languages.
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Compares forced drafting of Irish and Chinese laborers during the American Civil War
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explores the constellation of law, authority and state power that authorized the use of force against civilians in the American Civil War, and its later use in America’s imperial wars
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The American panic of 1893 had origins that were almost purely fiscal. No grand conflict between workers or owners started it; no fear of a growing socialist movement extended it. Yet within a year the 1893 panic ushered in one of the... more
The American panic of 1893 had origins that were almost purely fiscal. No grand conflict between workers or owners started it; no fear of a growing socialist movement extended it. Yet within a year the 1893 panic ushered in one of the most famous labor conflicts in American history. The American Railway Union’s support for workers locked out of the Pullman Palace Car Company became a titanic general strike centered in Chicago. “The Pullman strike,” recalled reformer Jane Addams, “afforded much illumination to many Chicago people. Before it, there had been nothing in my experience to reveal that distinct cleavage of society, which a general strike at least momentarily affords.” What began as international doubt about the dollar’s convertibility into gold became by 1894 a test of Eugene Debs’s new union, then an abortive strike, then the largest-ever shift in Congressional representation, and finally the beginnings of the political movement we now call Progressivism.