Book cover of Ersatz in the Confederacy: Shortages and Substitutes on the Southern Homefront

Book description

First published by the University of South Carolina in 1952, Ersatz in the Confederacy remains the definitive study of the South's desperate struggle to overcome critical shortages of food, medicine, clothing, household goods, farming supplies, and tools during the Civil War.

Mary Elizabeth Massey's seminal work carefully documents the ingenuity…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Ersatz in the Confederacy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Economic issues, including shortages of staple consumer goods, plagued the South throughout the war. Wherever a shortage existed, however, so did Southern efforts to find substitutes to meet the needs. Some of those substitutes were quite surprising and innovative.

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