January 18, 2024

K. Howell Keiser Jr.
(PhD Candidate, Nineteenth-Century U.S. History)
A Vindicating Science: The Political Economy of Expansion in the Antebellum South

Howell's talk explores the ways white Southerners, in the antebellum period, used political economy to defend slavery and their unique vision for man, society and resources. Beginning at the educational foundations in the 1820s and traversing the territorial debates during the height of sectional tensions, Howell illustrates how the economic theories of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo provided the proslavery elite with a scientific – indeed, environmentally sustainable – framework which seemingly validated their perspectives on slavery, progress, and national development. The pro-slavery Malthusianism of the South’s antebellum leaders gave their regional plans great coherence but brought them into fundamental conflict with a North devoted to an entirely different developmental model. This conflict undergirded the sectional debates over slavery and expansion, and it ultimately gave the South dismal answers about their future in the Union. 

Howell Keiser received his B.A. from the University of Alabama and his M.A. from Appalachian State University. He has served as the T. Harry Williams Fellow at LSU, the William Gilmore Simms Fellow at the University of South Carolina, the John L. Nau III Fellow at the University of Virginia, and the Mellon Fellow at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. He is also a contributor to the Journal of Mississippi History, the Alabama Review, the Southern Historian, Civil War History, the Simms Review, and the Emerging Civil War. Howell is currently an Instructor at LSU and the Editor-in-chief at the Civil War Book Review.

Place: Drusilla Seafood, 3482 Drusilla Lane http://drusillaplace.com/
Meeting Time: 6:30pm Doors open, Meeting begins 7:00pm, End 8:30 to 9:00pm.
Meeting Cost: $35.00 includes tax, tip, food and fun.
Reservations: Please make a reservation (s) by Tuesday, January 16
Late Reservations: Welcomed and appreciated.
Contact: John Potts (225) 937-2782, or [email protected]
Book Raffle: A selection of books or items. $1 per ticket or 6 tickets for $5.
Website: http://www.brcwrt.com