Peter Gay. Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture 1815-1914. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002.
This history of the Victorian bourgeoisie is framed by the life and writings (both published and private journals) of Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. Gay acknowledges that Schnitzler was anything but a typical middle-class man in many ways. However, his peculiarities were those of his time, he grappled with and commented on the cultural and social anxieties of his age, and while he was certainly exceptional he was also very much a man of his time and class. He is a larger presence earlier in the book than in later chapters, but by that point he will have served his purpose as a guide.
Class, more than chronology, shapes this study. The Victorian bourgeoisie certainly varied across time and space (although centered in Europe, the United States is included in this study) but Gay is interested in common attributes and broader themes. The book is organized thematically, and works from the outside in--beginning with a look at the class as a whole in the wider world, and ending with an extended examination of the interior life, ending with a chapter devoted to the very Victorian notion of privacy and a private life.
Beyond this broad survey (made up of discrete thematic parts) this book does have a larger argument--historians and critics then and now have been far too harsh to the Victorian middle class. They were, in Gay's account, much less hypocritical, petty and middle-brow than their reputation. They were, he argues, much more responsible for the best of their era--the reform movements, artistic and cultural innovations, increase in democracy, and regard for the life of the mind--than they have been given credit. Sober and temperate, they may not have been romantic revolutionaries but neither were they smug, provincial vulgarians. Schnitzler had many faults as a young man (snobbishness and relentless womanizing) but in the end he put the best of himself in his art and seemed to grow as a person as he aged and "settled down." His trajectory, and his life, were not a terrible analogy for the best of the middling class who were responsible for much of the best of the Victorian age.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
A House Dividing
John Majewski. A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia Before the Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000
In order to examine the role that slavery played in retarding the economic development in the antebellum South, Majewski has written a work of comparative history contrasting Albemarle County, Virginia, and Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Both counties were somewhat inland but directly connected to the Atlantic economy, and both were settled in the colonial era. Furthermore, Virginia and Pennsylvania shared certain characteristics that the latter wouldn't share with a Deep South state--they were both former colonies, and both had a trans-Allegheny hinterland which proved a challenge for early transportation improvements to surmount. In fact, Pennsylvania's efforts were expensive and not always successful in that endeavor, and Virginia's were complete failures.
Both states utilized "developmental corporations", with both private and public (State) financing, to build turnpikes and canals originally. However, issues with canals--which were much more expensive than turnpikes per mile--put a high strain on local financing. Getting statewide political support for transportation initiatives which would favor one county, town, or region over another proved very difficult. In the end, Pennsylvania was able to get the Mainline Canal (which also included rail sections) built largely because of the critical mass of interested investment capital in Philadelphia and also Pittsburgh.
Virginia, on the other hand, did not have any cities anywhere near as big in absolute or relative (to the rest of the state population) as Philadelphia. While Majewski cites geography as part of the reason, he argues that slavery was the root cause. The plantation economy encouraged low population density growth, and the minimal processing needs of the tobacco industry discouraged the development of central places and towns. Rather than a Boston or a Philadelphia or a New York City--or even a Charleston, SC or New Orleans--Virgina had several relatively small urban centers along the fall line from north to south, none of which had as diverse a manufacturing economy as Philadelphia did.
Every step of the way, Virginia's structural weaknesses compounded the issue, as a lack of development led to lagging growth, which could not fund further needed development, and so on. Majewski makes a strong case but further examination into the developmental possibilities and limitations of slave labor would strengthen his argument.
In order to examine the role that slavery played in retarding the economic development in the antebellum South, Majewski has written a work of comparative history contrasting Albemarle County, Virginia, and Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Both counties were somewhat inland but directly connected to the Atlantic economy, and both were settled in the colonial era. Furthermore, Virginia and Pennsylvania shared certain characteristics that the latter wouldn't share with a Deep South state--they were both former colonies, and both had a trans-Allegheny hinterland which proved a challenge for early transportation improvements to surmount. In fact, Pennsylvania's efforts were expensive and not always successful in that endeavor, and Virginia's were complete failures.
Both states utilized "developmental corporations", with both private and public (State) financing, to build turnpikes and canals originally. However, issues with canals--which were much more expensive than turnpikes per mile--put a high strain on local financing. Getting statewide political support for transportation initiatives which would favor one county, town, or region over another proved very difficult. In the end, Pennsylvania was able to get the Mainline Canal (which also included rail sections) built largely because of the critical mass of interested investment capital in Philadelphia and also Pittsburgh.
Virginia, on the other hand, did not have any cities anywhere near as big in absolute or relative (to the rest of the state population) as Philadelphia. While Majewski cites geography as part of the reason, he argues that slavery was the root cause. The plantation economy encouraged low population density growth, and the minimal processing needs of the tobacco industry discouraged the development of central places and towns. Rather than a Boston or a Philadelphia or a New York City--or even a Charleston, SC or New Orleans--Virgina had several relatively small urban centers along the fall line from north to south, none of which had as diverse a manufacturing economy as Philadelphia did.
Every step of the way, Virginia's structural weaknesses compounded the issue, as a lack of development led to lagging growth, which could not fund further needed development, and so on. Majewski makes a strong case but further examination into the developmental possibilities and limitations of slave labor would strengthen his argument.
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Roads to Power
Jo Guldi. Roads to Power: Britain Invents the Infrastructure State. Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 2012.
Guldi seeks to reclaim the lost role of the State in the history of the British road network prior to the 20th century. This is a history of the development of the “infrastructure state,” something she argues has not been fully recognized or appreciated. The predominant role that private enterprise played in the later nineteenth century has overshadowed an early period; a full century ending in the mid 1830's when the British state, through increasingly centralized means, created a substantial and robust national road network where none had previously existed. In order to convert a scattering of locally-funded turnpikes and a sparse network of military roads built to solidify British control of Scotland into a much more rationalized network serving civilian and economic needs, visionary “centralizers” found the tools—physical, fiscal, and rhetorical—to sway political opinion towards their expansionist, nationalizing ends.
In this light, Guldi finds that the real accomplishment of long-celebrated heroes of civil engineering wasn’t their technical innovations in road- and bridge-building, but their persuasive and managerial talents. Creating a national road network was less a triumph over the physical environment than over parochial interests and deeply-rooted notions of British liberty. The genius of MacAdam, then, wasn’t the technique of road paving named for him (and Guldi notes that he should be regarded as a popularizer, not innovator, of his namesake “macadamized” roads). Rather, MacAdam developed methods of enforcing standardization without reliance on on-site experts, while managing a large, unskilled workforce.
In the end, opponents to the newly created national road network won the political battle within a few short decades of the ‘centralizers’ victory; the localization movement succeeded politically but the cost to British roads and to poorer regions of Great Britain was high. In the early 20th century, the pendulum would swing back towards centralization—in Britain and elsewhere—and then libertarian opposition to the concept of the ‘public good’ would make yet another comeback at the end of the century—an era we are still living through. Lobbying efforts by telecommunications interests to essentially turn the internet into a “toll road” of sorts is part of that same backlash.
Guldi seeks to reclaim the lost role of the State in the history of the British road network prior to the 20th century. This is a history of the development of the “infrastructure state,” something she argues has not been fully recognized or appreciated. The predominant role that private enterprise played in the later nineteenth century has overshadowed an early period; a full century ending in the mid 1830's when the British state, through increasingly centralized means, created a substantial and robust national road network where none had previously existed. In order to convert a scattering of locally-funded turnpikes and a sparse network of military roads built to solidify British control of Scotland into a much more rationalized network serving civilian and economic needs, visionary “centralizers” found the tools—physical, fiscal, and rhetorical—to sway political opinion towards their expansionist, nationalizing ends.
In this light, Guldi finds that the real accomplishment of long-celebrated heroes of civil engineering wasn’t their technical innovations in road- and bridge-building, but their persuasive and managerial talents. Creating a national road network was less a triumph over the physical environment than over parochial interests and deeply-rooted notions of British liberty. The genius of MacAdam, then, wasn’t the technique of road paving named for him (and Guldi notes that he should be regarded as a popularizer, not innovator, of his namesake “macadamized” roads). Rather, MacAdam developed methods of enforcing standardization without reliance on on-site experts, while managing a large, unskilled workforce.
In the end, opponents to the newly created national road network won the political battle within a few short decades of the ‘centralizers’ victory; the localization movement succeeded politically but the cost to British roads and to poorer regions of Great Britain was high. In the early 20th century, the pendulum would swing back towards centralization—in Britain and elsewhere—and then libertarian opposition to the concept of the ‘public good’ would make yet another comeback at the end of the century—an era we are still living through. Lobbying efforts by telecommunications interests to essentially turn the internet into a “toll road” of sorts is part of that same backlash.
Friday, December 15, 2017
White Trash
Nancy Isenberg. White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. New York: Viking, 2016.
Isenberg holds that Americans have long been in denial about the degree about class--it's role in American history, it's deep roots in early English colonization, and even the very fact of it's existence. This book serves, then, as an implicit critique of American exceptionalism. By the end, she wants the reader to be completely disabused of any lingering doubts that the United States has been, and remains, a society deeply stratified by class, and possessing a sizable white underclass that, to paraphrase Jesus of Nazareth, has always been with us.
She succeeds in that end, but because this is a story of the white underclass, her conceptual relationship with race is problematic. It's not entirely sure what Isenberg thinks of the relationship between race and class in American history. At times, she makes reference to the conventional assertion that appeals to racism have often divided the black and white underclass, but this conventionally leftist appeal to a class-based interpretation doesn't seem to be her primary focus.
Another problem is that African-Americans appear to be the only non-white minority given much attention in this book. We learn little if anything about Hispanic Americans, or the Asian-American experience in the West. Her story begins in the early English colonies, and never really makes it past the Mississippi. And most unfortunately, there are times when her writing seems to suggest an equivalency being made between white poverty and black slavery. Her view is very focused on the rural South and her book might actually be stronger had she made a less sweeping claim to writing "The" story of class in the United States.
Still this is an ambitious book, not afraid to throw a wide net and find connections between colonial land squatters and twenty-first century reality tv stars. It will be interesting to see what Isenberg has to say on race and class in the future.
Isenberg holds that Americans have long been in denial about the degree about class--it's role in American history, it's deep roots in early English colonization, and even the very fact of it's existence. This book serves, then, as an implicit critique of American exceptionalism. By the end, she wants the reader to be completely disabused of any lingering doubts that the United States has been, and remains, a society deeply stratified by class, and possessing a sizable white underclass that, to paraphrase Jesus of Nazareth, has always been with us.
She succeeds in that end, but because this is a story of the white underclass, her conceptual relationship with race is problematic. It's not entirely sure what Isenberg thinks of the relationship between race and class in American history. At times, she makes reference to the conventional assertion that appeals to racism have often divided the black and white underclass, but this conventionally leftist appeal to a class-based interpretation doesn't seem to be her primary focus.
Another problem is that African-Americans appear to be the only non-white minority given much attention in this book. We learn little if anything about Hispanic Americans, or the Asian-American experience in the West. Her story begins in the early English colonies, and never really makes it past the Mississippi. And most unfortunately, there are times when her writing seems to suggest an equivalency being made between white poverty and black slavery. Her view is very focused on the rural South and her book might actually be stronger had she made a less sweeping claim to writing "The" story of class in the United States.
Still this is an ambitious book, not afraid to throw a wide net and find connections between colonial land squatters and twenty-first century reality tv stars. It will be interesting to see what Isenberg has to say on race and class in the future.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
The Rhetoric of Conservatism
Bruce D. Dickson. The Rhetoric of Conservatism: The Virginia Convention of 1829-30 and the Conservative Tradition in the South. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1982.
The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829 was the culmination of decades of reformist agitation against the 1776 Constitution. By 1829, the largely Eastern conservative elite recognized that further resistance would only stoke ever-more radical backlash, and the reformers of the West got their opportunity.
That convention would largely disappoint those reformers, as conservatives and their moderate allies were able to defeat all but the most modest of reforms, and prevent the adoption of universal white male suffrage or white population apportionment. The first three chapters of this book detail how that happened.
The final three chapters, on the other hand, analyze the particular qualities of Virginia conservatism at this period, and the origins and nature of conservative rhetoric and its underlying ideology. At the time, Virginia conservatism was deeply anti-democratic, but not yet fully defined by the "positive good" defense of slavery which was just beginning to take shape in the 1830's. Although often buttressed by references to classic conservative arguments by Edmund Burke and others, their conservatism was heavily grounded in concrete experience and a suspicion of abstraction and idealism. Government should be predicated on what had worked and what already existed rather than idealized notions of what might improve society. And liberal notions of individual liberation were a threat to social harmony and mutual interests.
Slavery would eventually take a more prominent role in this conception, by way of concerns for the sanctity of property as a basis for political stability. At the same time, the increased focus on slavery as the basis for Virginia society led to a more racially-defined conception of citizenship; so that in the 1850's Virginia conservatives would end up ratifying the same universal white male suffrage they had resisted so successfully two decades prior.
The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829 was the culmination of decades of reformist agitation against the 1776 Constitution. By 1829, the largely Eastern conservative elite recognized that further resistance would only stoke ever-more radical backlash, and the reformers of the West got their opportunity.
That convention would largely disappoint those reformers, as conservatives and their moderate allies were able to defeat all but the most modest of reforms, and prevent the adoption of universal white male suffrage or white population apportionment. The first three chapters of this book detail how that happened.
The final three chapters, on the other hand, analyze the particular qualities of Virginia conservatism at this period, and the origins and nature of conservative rhetoric and its underlying ideology. At the time, Virginia conservatism was deeply anti-democratic, but not yet fully defined by the "positive good" defense of slavery which was just beginning to take shape in the 1830's. Although often buttressed by references to classic conservative arguments by Edmund Burke and others, their conservatism was heavily grounded in concrete experience and a suspicion of abstraction and idealism. Government should be predicated on what had worked and what already existed rather than idealized notions of what might improve society. And liberal notions of individual liberation were a threat to social harmony and mutual interests.
Slavery would eventually take a more prominent role in this conception, by way of concerns for the sanctity of property as a basis for political stability. At the same time, the increased focus on slavery as the basis for Virginia society led to a more racially-defined conception of citizenship; so that in the 1850's Virginia conservatives would end up ratifying the same universal white male suffrage they had resisted so successfully two decades prior.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Parlor Politics
Catherine Allgor. Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2000.
In 1801, Thomas Jefferson arrived in the still embryonic capital city of the nation he sought to lead away from what he saw as the anti-Republican tendencies of Federalist rule towards a purer, more perfect Republicanism. As the first President to reside in Washington City for his entire term, he also sought to use the social life of the small but growing new city as a means to set the tone of his administration but also to funnel the political life through channels he would mediate, oversee, and control. In the end, though, the growing social life of the city--managed by the elite women married to other political figures--would take on a life of its own. And those women would become an important component of the growing Republican society of Washington, and of the United States' ruling class.
Allgor's study begins with Jefferson and ends with Jackson. Jackson's conflict with the "ladies of Washington" over the Peggy Eaton affair is revealed here as a more substantive and fundamental conflict than many bemused (or amused) historians have allowed over the years. In the end, the ladies of Washington succeeded in banishing Eaton, but at the expense of some of their power, as the role of society in political life would recede in subsequent years and administrations.
By the end, the rise of Jacksonian democracy had undone earlier Republican qualms regarding personal ambition and the possibly corrupting role of government service on public virtue. The need for wives to serve as political proxies for their ostensibly disinterested husbands through Washington City's social life receded, as did the power those women had once held. As in many other ways, Jacksonian Democracy proved to be extremely riven by gender inequities.
In 1801, Thomas Jefferson arrived in the still embryonic capital city of the nation he sought to lead away from what he saw as the anti-Republican tendencies of Federalist rule towards a purer, more perfect Republicanism. As the first President to reside in Washington City for his entire term, he also sought to use the social life of the small but growing new city as a means to set the tone of his administration but also to funnel the political life through channels he would mediate, oversee, and control. In the end, though, the growing social life of the city--managed by the elite women married to other political figures--would take on a life of its own. And those women would become an important component of the growing Republican society of Washington, and of the United States' ruling class.
Allgor's study begins with Jefferson and ends with Jackson. Jackson's conflict with the "ladies of Washington" over the Peggy Eaton affair is revealed here as a more substantive and fundamental conflict than many bemused (or amused) historians have allowed over the years. In the end, the ladies of Washington succeeded in banishing Eaton, but at the expense of some of their power, as the role of society in political life would recede in subsequent years and administrations.
By the end, the rise of Jacksonian democracy had undone earlier Republican qualms regarding personal ambition and the possibly corrupting role of government service on public virtue. The need for wives to serve as political proxies for their ostensibly disinterested husbands through Washington City's social life receded, as did the power those women had once held. As in many other ways, Jacksonian Democracy proved to be extremely riven by gender inequities.
Friday, November 10, 2017
The Shaping of America, Volume 2
D.W. Meinig. The Shaping of America: A Geographic Perspective on 500 Years of History. Volume 2 Continental America, 1800-1867. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.
This is the second of four volumes of a massive geographic history of the United States of America. Meinig's achievement combines his own expertise in geography with an impressive synthesis of historical literature. His readings of the latter are calibrated to a wide scale--sometimes continental, sometimes hemispheric, oftentimes quite intimate and local.
Volume 2 turns from the Atlantic focus of the first volume towards a more continental viewpoint, in line with the demographic and geographic shift in the early Republic towards westward development. A consistent theme develops--the United States expanded rapidly, at an almost feverish pace during this era. That growth outstripped whatever efforts there were to create a robust national infrastructure or even a comprehensive national plan, so that sectional divisions spread and further west even as the industrial economy of the North and the cotton economy of the Deep South created increasingly incongruent societies. Once those two societies began "running into each other" in Missouri, latent sectional divergences began to morph into increasingly strident sectional opposition.
Interestingly, Meinig closes his perioidization in 1867. With the Civil War already over and Reconstruction just beginning, he looks beyond the theater of war to the Western frontier and the broader North American region; Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. This is a appropriate for the transcontinental theme of Volume 3.
This is the second of four volumes of a massive geographic history of the United States of America. Meinig's achievement combines his own expertise in geography with an impressive synthesis of historical literature. His readings of the latter are calibrated to a wide scale--sometimes continental, sometimes hemispheric, oftentimes quite intimate and local.
Volume 2 turns from the Atlantic focus of the first volume towards a more continental viewpoint, in line with the demographic and geographic shift in the early Republic towards westward development. A consistent theme develops--the United States expanded rapidly, at an almost feverish pace during this era. That growth outstripped whatever efforts there were to create a robust national infrastructure or even a comprehensive national plan, so that sectional divisions spread and further west even as the industrial economy of the North and the cotton economy of the Deep South created increasingly incongruent societies. Once those two societies began "running into each other" in Missouri, latent sectional divergences began to morph into increasingly strident sectional opposition.
Interestingly, Meinig closes his perioidization in 1867. With the Civil War already over and Reconstruction just beginning, he looks beyond the theater of war to the Western frontier and the broader North American region; Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. This is a appropriate for the transcontinental theme of Volume 3.
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