Challenging commonly held assumptions about the attitudes and actions of the pre-Civil War southern elite, Jane Turner Censer draws on an impressive array of primary and secondary sources to show that southern planters, at least in their relations with their children, were caring, affectionate, and surprisingly egalitarian.

This study of North Carolina planter families in the first half of the nineteenth century challenges many of the commonly held assumptions about the attitudes and actions of the pre-Civil War southern elite. Jane Turner Censer draws on an impressive array of primary and secondary sources to show that southern planters, at least in their relations with their children, were caring, affectionate, and surprisingly egalitarian. Bringing to light a wealth of previously unassimilated information, North Carolina Planters and Their Children points toward a new understanding of social and cultural life among the wealthy during the 1800s.