TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bodenhorn,Howard
TI  - Just and Reasonable Treatment: Racial Treatment in the Terms of Pauper Apprenticeship in Antebellum Maryland
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9752
PY  - 2003
Y2  - June 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9752
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9752.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Howard Bodenhorn
John E. Walker Department of Economics
College of Business and Behavioral Science
201-B Sirrine Hall
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634
Tel: 864/656-4335
E-Mail: bodenhorn@gmail.com
AB  - This paper investigates the economics of pauper apprenticeship in antebellum Maryland and several results emerge. Contrary to some earlier interpretations, the system did not arbitrarily indent poor children. Court officials negotiated contracts that reflected an apprentice's productivity; officials did not offer one-size-fits-all contracts to minimize the costs of indenting indigent children. Black and white children received comparable compensation during the term of the indenture, but blacks were promised and received substantially less education than whites. It was in the provision of education that Maryland's system discriminated against blacks and undermined their ability to achieve long-run economic independence.
ER  -