Wealthy Planters and Southerners

James Lutzweiler

Sergeant Major
Joined
Mar 14, 2018
Fellow Posters,

The wealth of the South --and planters in particular-- is a constant theme by historians of the antebellum. However, I have yet to discover any planter or southern businessman in the antebellum to be worth over $1,000,000. Yet in the North there are many millionaires. William Astor, son of John Jacob Astor, was said in his obituary, published in the New York Times, to be worth $20,000,000 in 1848. Then there is Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Cooke, and others. But I know of no millionaire counterparts in the antebellum South. Does anyone? What can anyone tell me?

James
 
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