Money & Markets
What actually unites Andrew Jackson and the Civil War? The invention of “poor white trash”When US president Donald Trump recently asked, “Why was there the Civil War?” and advanced the notion that his predecessor, Andrew Jackson, was angry about it, historians were quick to point out that Jackson died 15 years before the war began. But there is a thread that unifies Jackson’s era to Lincoln’s: the rise in prevalence of white Southern poverty over that time, and its impact on politics and the question of slavery. Historian Nancy Isenberg documents this in an excerpt from her recent book, WHITE TRASH: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America:
Updated July 20, 20225 min read