24. Alfred H. Stone, Material Wanted for an Economic History of the Negro (N.p., n.d.). (16 p.)


Request for manuscripts. Mr. Stone explains that he is attempting to gather material for “an economic history of the negro,” and divides the subject into five topics: 1) the ante bellum period, 2) Free Negroes, 3) the Negro during the Civil War, 4) emancipation and Reconstruction, and 5) the Negro since Reconstruction. His introduction is followed by 105 queries that describe the type of material he was looking for. For example, under the ante-bellum period he asks, “What were the amusements and recreations of slaves, and what restrictions were placed upon them as to the use of firearms?” Under the heading of “Free Negroes,” he asks, “To what extent did they become slaveholders and planters?” He asks, “How far were plantations disorganized, and how did the negro work in absence of owner and overseer?” during the Civil War. And as far as Reconstruction was involved, Mr. Stone asks, along with twenty-two other questions, “Aside from political considerations, what part did the Freedmen’s Bureau play in the adjustment of the new economic relations between whites and negroes?” (The collection has another copy of this pamphlet in volume 92 [no. 2]).