The Work of Reconstruction: From Slave to Wage Laborer in South Carolina 1860-1870 - Paperbackby Julie Saville (Author) In their efforts to achieve freedom, ex slaves mounted a dual struggle to elude the personal domination of the old order and to blunt new coercions embedded in terms of emerging wage employment. This book draws on a rich documentary record to allow ex slaves to express in their own words and behavior the aspirations that underlay their efforts. The author discusses the labor disputes that convulsed the post Civil War South,