You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

Hello and welcome to Ben Franklin's World Revisited,

a series of classic episodes that bring fresh perspective to our latest episodes

and had deeper connections to our

understanding of early American history. And I'm your host, Liz Covart. When we think about

slavery in early America, we often rightfully focus on the human toll, the violence, the exploitation,

and the dehumanization that defined the institution. But slavery wasn't just a system

of forced labor. It was also a business. Next week in episode 418, we'll be investigating a different

facet of the business of slavery. The story is slave drivers, enslaved people who were either forced to

or took up positions of authority over

others. Now, to better understand the system that slave drivers operated within, I thought we

should revisit episode 281 with historian Caitlin Rosenthal. Caitlin is now an associate professor

of history at the University of California, Berkeley.

Her book, Accounting for Slavery, Master's and Management, won the Simkins Award from the Southern Historical Association and the Economic Historical Society's first book prize.

During our conversation, Caitlin reveals how enslavers track the productivity of individual enslaved people using pre-printed

account books, how those account books contributed to the rise of scientific management and business

practices, and why understanding these plantation systems is crucial for rethinking the origins of

American capitalism.

Okay, are you ready to revisit with Caitlin and see how slavery shape not just lives but account ledgers?

Let's go rejoin Caitlin Rosenthal. Thank you. Our guest is an assistant professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She's an expert in 18th and 19th century business history, economic history, and labor history. She's also the author of numerous

articles and a book, Accounting for Slavery, Masters and Management. Welcome to Ben Franklin's World,

Caitlin Rosenthal. It's wonderful to be here. So Caitlin, I wonder if we could begin our conversation

...