Accounting Discoveries from Archival Research: The Mobile and Ohio, an Antebellum Southern Railroad

Dale L. Flesher, Gary John Previts and Andrew D. Sharp

Abacus, 2020, vol. 56, issue 1, 140-163

Abstract: This paper details discoveries relating to the accounting transactions that chronicle the circumstances of the Mobile and Ohio (M&O) Railroad's 1850s and 1860s asset ledgers. There were accounting differences between railroads overall because the northern lines used foreign construction workers, while the southern lines used slaves. ‘Personal Property’ was the title given to the account used by the M&O to record the acquisition of slaves—with the accountant using the term ‘slaves’ in a journal entry description. Moreover, this research provides information regarding the construction labour for the M&O that was supplied by planters from plantation labour pools composed of the slave population. Because of the availability of this plantation labour pool, the M&O did not have to rely on immigrant labour and accept the risk of controlling their behaviour. The coming of the American Civil War changed labour market conditions, and the M&O became a slave‐holding organization to maintain itself during the War. At the War's end the accounting records detail the M&O's disposition of the wartime slave acquisitions with the comment ‘… emancipated by force of circumstances’. This paper contributes to the literature by providing discoveries from original archival records documenting how a large major American corporation accounted for labour costs, initial construction, and beginning operations.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12174

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:bla:abacus:v:56:y:2020:i:1:p:140-163

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0001-3072

Access Statistics for this article

Abacus is currently edited by G.W. Dean and S. Jones

More articles in Abacus from Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().