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This book profiles an American community in the nineteenth century to show the larger process by which the nation was transformed from a life close to the frontier to that characteristic of industrial capitalism. Michael Cassity considers this economic change from the broader perspective of an historian of the American people, offering insights into its social implications and consequences.
With graceful and moving prose, Cassity focuses on the process of social change, the pains that change generated, and the resistance to it. In the course of this transformation, the author examines the ways in which workers, farmers, businessmen, and women experienced and responded to the rise of a new industrial order.
"It is no secret that the field of American social history is presently in a quagmire. While some subspecialties (e.g., women's history) are developing fresh approaches, others (e.g. labor history) are not. Michael Cassity's Defending a Way of Life : An American Community in the Nineteenth Century is a marvelously refreshing attempt to free the field from all these problems and to suggest a new agenda for social historians. The various elements of this book weave together so well that it is hard to pinpoint which features are the most important. The strengths begin with the ambitious goal, to illuminate the human condition, carry through the warm and generous exploration of the many ways that human beings have preserved a sense of pride amid pains caused when external forces have changed their internal lives, and certainly include a style that is insightful, eloquent and impassioned in the best senses." — David Thelen, Editor, The Journal of American History
Preface
Part One Of Dreams and Realities Born
Chapter I: Origins and Purposes
i. Dwellers of the Inland
ii. A Birthright Reclaimed
Chapter II: The Pattern of Community
i. Economy
ii. Polity
iii. Bonds of Mutuality
Chapter III: The Crisis of Change and War
i. Prometheus Bound
ii. A New Society
Part Two The Rising Pattern of Industrial Market Society
Chapter IV: The Engines of Economic Growth
i. Social Discipline
ii. The Juggernaut
Chapter V: God and Mammon: The Birth of East Sedalia
Chapter VI: A Vale of Tears: The Experiences of Change
i. More Than a Machine
ii. Visible Destruction
iii. The Corruption of Eve
iv. Of Faith and Fear
Part Three The Agency of the People
Chapter VII: The Businessmen and the Market
i. The Social Contract
ii. Competition: The Lifeblood of Freedom
iii. The Curse of Consolidation
iv. The Imperative of Autonomy
Chapter VIII: The Community of Workers
i. The Wellsprings of Vigilance
ii. Responsibility: Moral Vision and Social Need
iii. Amity and Equity
iv. The Sources of Discipline
v. Ishmael
Chapter IX: The Agrarian Commonweal
i. Arcadia and the Scourge of Nature
ii. Sowing the Wind
iii. Toward the Cooperative Commonwealth
Chapter X: The Travail of Sisterhood
i. The Ordeal of the Doyennes
ii. The World of Women and the World of the Market
iii. The Redeemers and the Seeds of Feminism
Part Four Conclusion
Chapter XI: A Way of Life Forsaken?
A Note on Historiography
Notes
Index