The Book Prize Index

No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era

Jacqueline Jones

"Before, during, and after the US Civil War, Boston's Black workers were barred from the skilled trades, factory work, and public-works projects. In Boston, as in cities across the North, white abolitionists focused virtually all their energies on the plight of enslaved Black Southerners, while refusing to address the challenges faced by their Black neighbors. The author presents inspiring and heart-wrenching stories of people-from day laborers and domestics to physicians and lawyers-who ingeniously forged careers in the face of monumental obstacles"--

HistoryAmerican History · medium confidenceAmerican History81 signalsLlm Classifier: American History -> American HistoryGoogle Books: History -> HistoryKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryBlack History & CultureCivil Rights & Racial JusticeSlavery & Emancipation

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Pulitzer Prize in HistoryMajor2024WinnerSecondary source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    • Boston90%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    In the Civil War era, Boston’s white abolitionists largely neglected Black workers’ economic struggles while barring them from skilled trades, factories, and public-works projects.

    Model confidence 74%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    45 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.