The Cotton Kings ─ Capitalism and Corruption in Turn-of-the-Century New York and New Orleans

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, many Americans feel they are subject to economic forces beyond their control. Some critics of today's economy compare it to the rampant inequality of the late nineteenth century, when robber barons manipulated the economy to their own benefit. Others object to the remedies that were applied in the early twentieth century, insisting that markets work best when governed least.

In The Cotton Kings, historians Bruce E. Baker and Barbara Hahn relate a colorful account of an economic drama with striking parallels to contemporary American economic debates. At the turn of the twentieth century, dishonest cotton brokers used bad information to lower prices on the futures market, impoverishing millions of farmers. To fight this corruption, a small group of brokers sought to control the price of cotton on unregulated exchanges in New York and New Orleans. They triumphed, cornering the world market in cotton and raising its price for years. However, the structural problems of self-regulation by market participants continued to threaten the cotton trade until eventually political pressure inspired federal regulation. In the form of the Cotton Futures Act of 1914, the federal government stamped out corruption on the exchanges, helping millions of farmers and textile manufacturers.

Joining a gripping narrative with the controversial argument that markets work better when placed under federal regulation,The Cotton Kings brings to light a rarely told story that speaks directly to contemporary conflicts between free markets and regulation.

Bruce E. Baker teaches at Newcastle University in England and is co-editor of the journal American Nineteenth Century History. His previous books includeWhat Reconstruction Meant: Historical Memory in the American South, This Mob Will Surely Take My Life: Lynchings in the Carolinas, 1871-1947, After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Citizenship in the Reconstruction South, andThe South at Work: Observations from 1904.

Barbara Hahn is associate professor of history at Texas Tech University and associate editor ofTechnology and Culture. She is the author of Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937.