Land Endowments, Child Labor, and the Rise of Public Schooling: Evidence from Racial Inequality in the U.S. South

Black children born in the U.S. South in 1910 attended inferior schools and received three fewer years of education than their white peers. These racial differences diminished significantly in the following three decades, most notably in the Cotton Belt. Moreover, there was no major federal policy targeted at black schools during this period. I propose that the demand for child labor can explain these trends in racial inequality. To test this explanation, I digitize archival school district data and combine them with data on cotton production. I argue that prior to 1910, the demands of cotton crowded out black schooling in this region because (1) its land endowments were conducive to growing cotton, (2) growing it was particularly childlabor intensive, and (3) black children were more frequently employed than white children. School boards under invested in black schools as a result of the demand for black child labor by both white landowners and black parents. I provide evidence that black-white differences in public school quality in 1910 were larger in cotton-growing regions of the South than in otherwise comparable non-cotton growing regions. I also show that most of these racial differences narrowed during two periods: (1) the early 1920s slowdown of cotton production, and (2) beginning in the mid-1930s when New Deal policy indirectly discouraged cotton share tenancy and consequently suppressed demand for child labor. These results suggest a reinterpretation of how institutions developed during the Jim Crow era by emphasizing land endowments and child labor, which in turn has consequences for black well being during the 20th century.