Leadership and Social Movements: The <em>Forty-Eighters</em> in the Civil War
This paper studies the role of leaders in the social movement against slavery that culminated in the U.S. Civil War. Our analysis is organized around a natural experiment: leaders of the failed German revolution of 1848-49 were expelled to the U.S. and became anti-slavery campaigners who helped mobilize Union Army volunteers. Towns where Forty-Eighters settled show two-thirds higher Union Army enlistments. Their influence worked thought 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.
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