Eleazer Carver, Bridgewater, and the Rise and Fall of the Cotton-Slave Economy

By the eve of the Civil War in 1861, Carver-owned factories in Bridgewater and East Bridgewater, respectively, were the second and sixth largest producers of cotton gins in the United States.  Bridgewater-made gins were prized by many of the South's wealthiest enslaver-planters and lauded by Northern textile manufacturers who sourced their supply of cotton from Southern plantations.  Dr. Delahanty will explain how the Bridgewater-born Carver became a pivotal figure in the cotton economy of the antebellum South and how Carver's gin factories both helped to sustain and ultimately survived the collapse of the cotton-slave economy.  

Ian Delahanty is an Associate Professor of history at Springfield College, where he teaches courses on the Civil War Era, American Immigration History, African American History, and Public History.