Broken Chains and Subverted Plans
Broken Chains and Subverted Plans: Ethnicity, Race, and Commodities examines the ways in which the large-scale development plans of Anglo-American governing officials and investors were subverted by the choices of individuals and social networks in the regions of Virginia and Illinois in the nineteenth century. The lessons from this study inform issues very current today, as economists and policy makers debate the best ways to create new markets and develop commodity chains of production and consumption spanning the globe. The backcountry of Virginia presents a story of German-American farmers utilizing ethnic social networks to take selective advantage of economic opportunities promoted by Anglo-American officials and investors. The region of Illinois illustrates the ways in which African Americans worked to overcome the overt and structural racism that shaped the availability of land and economic opportunities in the Midwest. These two case studies emerge from multi-year research projects in which Fennell served as a principal investigator, analyst, and archaeologist.