Rabbit-Holes about Redlining, 1619, and the New History of Capitalism

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First, I was curious that Riley cited only one source about redlining, so I looked it up:

Fishback study on the HOLC maps, which Riley cites as evidence that HOLC wasn't to blame: 

"[T]he maps were made available too late for them to be used in the HOLC’s original program of purchasing and refinancing one million mortgages, and HOLC leaders actively sought to keep their maps out of the hands of private interests. The only HOLC policy that the maps might have influenced was how they disposed of the 200,000 homes on which they ultimately foreclosed. In the final analysis of HOLC policy actions, the HOLC was likely the least discriminatory among categories of lenders in the mortgage markets. ... Given the long history of discrimination against African Americans by governments at all levels before the 1930s, the HOLC might have been the least discriminatory government agency of that time."

Another article on redlining from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which concludes that "Our research leaves no doubt that the existence and legacy of redlining is real. We argue, however, that to the extent that federal agencies institutionalized redlining by drawing specific borders, this largely occurred through the FHA." They also say: 

"While the HOLC broadly loaned to Black borrowers, it did so within the existing system of segregation, refinancing loans that already existed. In contrast, the FHA was instructed to create a new system of loan insurance that departed in key ways from existing practices. In light of the failure of mortgage insurance companies from the 1920s, the FHA was instructed to make only “economically sound” loans—a phrase that the FHA interpreted as a mandate to avoid core urban neighborhoods or those whose racial composition might potentially be in flux. Neither program was tasked with defying the existing patterns of segregation, and neither did."

I was curious about the 1619 debate.

Nikole Hannah-Jones article "What is Owed" in the NY Times.

1. She equates law enforcement with slave drivers: "The names of the mechanisms of social control have changed, but the presumption that white patrollers have the legal right to kill black people deemed to have committed minor infractions or to have breached the social order has remained," and lists black people who have been "legally killed by the institutional descendants of those slave patrols for alleged transgressions like walking from the store with Skittles, playing with a toy gun in the park, sleeping in their homes and selling untaxed cigarettes."
   
2. She says about the 2020 George Floyd protests, "No one can predict whether this uprising will lead to lasting change. History does not bode well." Denying any history of change?
3. She claims that, "At the time of the Civil War, the value of the enslaved human beings held as property added up to more than all of this nations’ railroads and factories combined." But historian James Oakes disputes this. (See below.)
   
4. She writes, "Reparations are a societal obligation in a nation where our Constitution sanctioned slavery, Congress passed laws protecting it and our federal government initiated, condoned and practiced legal racial segregation and discrimination against black Americans until half a century ago. And so it is the federal government that pays. / Reparations would go to any person who has documentation that he or she identified as a black person for at least 10 years before the beginning of any reparations process and can trace at least one ancestor back to American slavery." Is this fair? Our Constitution hasn't "sanctioned slavery" since the 13th Amendment. What about when the federal government stepped in to prevent segregation in the 50's and 60's?
   

"A Matter of Facts" by Sean Wilentz, responding to Jake Silverstein, the NYT Magazine's editor, who defended the 1619 article.

1. Wilentz agrees slavery and racism are crucial to U.S. history. But he insists a responsible retelling must also include (a) the antislavery tradition (including white and Black abolitionists) (b) Internal conflicts in the founding era, and (c) Complexity in figures like Lincoln
2. He rebuts NHJ's claim that American Revolution was fought primarily to preserve slavery. In 1776, Britain was not actively threatening slavery in the colonies. The Somerset case (1772) was limited in scope and had little real impact in the American South. And colonists were already restricting the slave trade themselves and that motivations for independence were broader.
3. He also challenges her claim that Lincoln opposed Black equality. Lincoln, while imperfect, risked his presidency and life for Black freedom and later Black citizenship.
4. He pushes hard against her statement that Black Americans “fought back alone.” This erases white allies who were beaten, jailed, or killed in the fight for racial justice, from Reconstruction through the civil rights movement.
5. The 1619 Project has an important mission, but replacing one myth with another weakens its cause. To defend democracy and fight oppression, Wilentz insists we must remain committed to "plain, provable facts"—even when confronting painful truths.
   

Historian James Oakes (one of the scholars who signed a letter to the NYTimes challenging the 1619 Project) on "How the 1619 Project Distorted History"

1. He criticizes the project’s tone of discovery, suggesting it insults generations of historians and teachers who have long taught the significance of 1619.
2. He strongly objects to the claim that the protection of slavery was a “primary” motive for the American Revolution, calling it “absurd” and unsupported by historical evidence.
3. He asserts that the 1619 Project ignores or downplays white antislavery activism, from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War.
4. Oakes criticizes sociologist Matthew Desmond’s essay for misstating how cotton was grown, how plantations operated, and how accounting practices evolved.
5. He contends that the project exaggerates the role of slavery in building the broader U.S. economy, especially in the North, and ignores evidence that slavery harmed long-term Southern development, and most Northern wealth was not generated by the cotton economy. (See more below.)
6. He argues that the 1619 Project treats emancipation as a footnote, rather than the revolutionary transformation it was.
7. He emphasizes the radical social and political changes that followed the Civil War, including the end of legal slavery, Black family formation, education, and land ownership—none of which are given due attention in the 1619 narrative.
8. Oakes accuses the 1619 Project of promoting a “monocausal” theory of U.S. history—that racism and slavery explain nearly everything.
9. Oakes affirms that slavery was central to U.S. history, but criticizes the 1619 Project for flattening complexity, erasing conflict, and distorting evidence to serve a present-day political agenda—namely, reparations.
10. He concludes that a better understanding of slavery involves recognizing both its deep entrenchment in capitalism and the powerful antislavery movements that arose in response.

Stanford professor of economic history, Gavin Wright's article, "Slavery and Economic Growth in the Early United States" (He was cited in James Oakes' article above, which is how I got to this.) He argues that while slavery was crucial to certain regional economies, especially in the colonial period and the South, it was not central to the overall acceleration of national economic growth in the 19th century. He challenges claims made by the "New History of Capitalism" (NHC) movement that slavery built American capitalism.

1. Slavery Was Important in Colonial Commerce Before the Revolution, slavery was widespread, including in the North. Northern commerce thrived on trade with slave economies in the Caribbean, with industries like shipping, meat, grain, and shipbuilding benefiting from the Atlantic slave economy.
2. The rise of cotton in the South was part of national growth, but cotton production didn’t inherently require slave labor. Wright argues that cotton could have been cultivated using free labor, as in the Old Northwest (e.g., Ohio, Indiana). Slavery persisted not because it was economically necessary, but because of “path dependence”—it was already embedded in Southern society.
3. The South’s economy was highly productive in cotton, but underdeveloped in other areas: Weak infrastructure, Low public education, Little immigration. Most wealth went to enslavers, not the broader society; by contrast, free states saw infrastructure investment, population growth, and industrialization.
4. Free States Powered National Economic Growth. Growth in the 19th-century U.S. was driven by: Expansion of free family farming in the Midwest, Transportation networks (e.g., the Erie Canal, railroads), Urban-industrial development in the North, A mass public school system
5. Complicity ≠ Centrality. Northern businesses (e.g., banks, shipping firms) were often complicit in slavery, facilitating trade or offering credit to planters. But complicity is not the same as driving the national economy through slavery. Wright argues that slavery was profitable for some, but not the engine of national growth.
6. Reparations Debate: Not Directly Addressed. Wright notes that these economic findings don’t negate calls for reparations or moral accountability. He clarifies that while most gains from slavery went to slaveowners, the system was constitutionally protected and nationally sustained.
   
7. Follow up question: If slavery wasn't central to national economic growth, does that weaken the case for reparations? Or is the moral and social harm enough, regardless of how much wealth it generated?

Dierdre McCloskey's article on how "Slavery Did Not Make America Rich," cited in Jason Riley's book