"In the nineteenth century, Jewish merchants created a thriving niche economy in the cotton trade, positioning themselves at the forefront of capitalist expansion. Jewish involvement in the cotton industry transformed both Jewish communities and their broader economic restructuring of the South. Cotton Capitalists analyzes this niche economy, revealing how Jewish merchants' status as a minority fostered ethnic economic networks, which became the key to the merchant's success. Michael R. Cohen argues that Jewish merchants in the Gulf South, faced with anti-Jewish prejudice in an era where business relationships were based primarily upon trust, used ethnic ties with other Jewish-owned firms across the globe to sidestep those prejudices. Following the Civil War, they relied on these connections to direct Northern credit and goods to the economically devastated South. These relationships allowed them to survive the volatility of the Reconstruction Era while many of their non-Jewish competitors went under. Beyond the story of American Jewish success and integration, this book demonstrates the role of ethnicity in the development of global capitalism."--Dust jacket.