Face Value
The Entwined Histories of Money and Race in America
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: This New Black Flesh Coin
Chapter 2: Banking on Slavery
Chapter 3: Rags, Blacking, and Paper Soldiers
Chapter 4: Gold Money and the Constitution of Man
Chapter 5: A Bank in Human Form
Epilogue: Words and Bonds
Notes
"Michael O’Malley’s witty, insightful Face Value traces the American quest for a stable source of value in a society that prized freedom.Through deft analysis of a wide range of sources, O’Malley shows that arguments over money and arguments over race have had much in common, and indeed, have often intersected in the United States in surprising and disturbing ways—even now. Most important is O’Malley’s contention that the monetary chaos of the nineteenth century, which has bewildered so many students of American history, turned whiteness into a crucial sign of individual worth."
“Face Value is a provocative, imaginative, and gracefully written work of cultural history, one that unearths hitherto unimagined connections between markets, money, and race. In the process, Michael O’Malley manages to show how currency, which historians and economists too often treat as timeless and neutral, has for centuries been entangled with the institution and legacy of American slavery.”
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