Leadership and Social Movements: The Forty-Eighters in the Civil War

Christian Dippel, Stephan Heblich

NBER Working Paper No. 24656
Issued in May 2018, Revised in July 2020
NBER Program(s):Development of the American Economy, Political Economy

This paper studies the role of leaders in the social movement against slavery that culminated in the U.S. Civil War. Our analysis is organized around a natural experiment: leaders of the failed German revolution of 1848-49 were expelled to the U.S. and became anti-slavery campaigners who helped mobilize Union Army volunteers. Towns where Forty-Eighters settled show two-thirds higher Union Army enlistments. Their influence worked thought local newspapers and social clubs. Going beyond enlistment decisions, Forty-Eighters reduced their companies' desertion rate during the war. In the long run, Forty-Eighter towns were more likely to form a local chapter of the NAACP.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w24656