#AcademicRunPlaylist - 11/16/25

My jet lag didn't quite go away this weekend, but while recovering I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was the National Bureau of Economic Research labor studies symposium. I highly recommend the amazing talk by Jacob Kohlhepp on worker preferences for overtime https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L-SNNMG64A

Next was "Banking on Slavery" by Sharon Ann Murphy. This book uses extremely detailed case studies to demonstrate how the beginnings of the US financial system were inextricably tied up with slavery, funding it's expansion and proactively financializing enslaved people. I do wish there was more macro perspective here, since while the individual cases which make up the majority of this book are revealing they eventually become repetitive and don't provide much insight into the broader impact of these financial practices. That being said, the sheer amount of historical detective work that must have gone into assembling these cases is extremely impressive, and the book overall is an essential text in understanding the US financial system and its horrific roots as well as the systemic depths of slavery. I would suggest pairing this book with Rosenthal's "Accounting for Slavery" to gain an even deeper perspective on how profoundly slavery has shaped the entire foundation of our economy. Highly recommend https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo190178034.html

Last was "The Poorhouse" by David Wagner. Wagner illuminates the history of the poorhouse, a once ubiquitous institution that was abolished post-WW2 and has somewhat been reconstructed, albeit in a different form, in recent decades. Starting with the frankly shocking way the poor were treated prior to poorhouses (poor people were literally auctioned off to the lowest bidder - they were paid by the state to feed and house them in exchange for labor), this book then moves into the complicated organization of the poorhouse - part homeless shelter, often part prison, nearly always involving forced labor, and managed by the state. One can imagine the issues that might arise in these institutions, and Wagner does examine the many abuses and graft that went on behind the scenes, but what struck me was how we arguably haven't improved much, if at all, on the conditions that prevailed in poorhouses over a century ago. With the New England focus here, I was also surprised that many of the community farms and hospitals in the area were originally poorhouses, with the farms used as workplaces for the poor. In many histories of the US, the poorest are invisible. Not here. Highly recommend https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/poorhouse-9780742529458/