Leadership in Social Movements: Evidence from the "Forty-Eighters" in the Civil War

Christian Dippel and Stephan Heblich

American Economic Review, 2021, vol. 111, issue 2, 472-505

Abstract: This paper studies the role of leaders in the social movement against slavery that culminated in the US Civil War. Our analysis is organized around a natural experiment: leaders of the failed German revolution of 1848–1849 were expelled to the United States and became antislavery campaigners who helped mobilize Union Army volunteers. Towns where Forty-Eighters settled show two-thirds higher Union Army enlistments. Their influence worked through local newspapers and social clubs. Going beyond enlistment decisions, Forty-Eighters reduced their companies' desertion rate during the war. In the long run, Forty-Eighter towns were more likely to form a local chapter of the NAACP.

JEL-codes: D74 J15 J45 J61 N31 N41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20191137 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E120404V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20191137.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20191137.ds (application/zip)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:111:y:2021:i:2:p:472-505

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20191137

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().