Class Matters: Early North America and the Atlantic World

343 Pages·2008·1.925 MB·English

by  Simon Middleton (editor), Billy G. Smith (editor)

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Class Matters
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early american studies
Daniel K.Richter and Kathleen M.Brown,Series Editors
Exploring neglected aspects ofour colonial,revolutionary,and early national
history and culture,Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes and events
in fresh ways.Interdisciplinary in character,and with a special emphasis on the
period from about 1600to 1850,the series is published in partnership with the
McNeil Center for Early American Studies.
A complete list ofbooks in the series is available from the publisher.
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Class Matters
Early North America and the
Atlantic World
Edited by Simon Middleton
and Billy G. Smith
University ofPennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
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Copyright © 2008University ofPennsylvania Press
All rights reserved.Except for briefquotations used for purposes ofreview or
scholarly citation,none ofthis book may be reproduced in any form by any means
without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University ofPennsylvania Press
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States ofAmerica on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library ofCongress
ISBN 978-0-8122-4063-4
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To Sage for her sixteenth and Michelle for her
sixtieth
To Carolyn, and for Gerald Sider, who got me
started on class
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Contents
Introduction 1
Simon Middleton and Billy G.Smith
1 Theorizing Class in Glasgow and the Atlantic World 16
Simon P.Newman
2 Stratification and Class in Eastern Native America 35
Daniel K.Richter
3 Subaltern Indians,Race,and Class in Early America 49
Daniel R.Mandell
4 Class Struggle in a West Indian Plantation Society 62
Natalie Zacek
5 Class at an African Commercial Enclave 76
Ty M.Reese
6 A Class Struggle in New York? 88
Simon Middleton
7 Middle-Class Formation in Eighteenth-Century
North America 99
Konstantin Dierks
8 Business Friendships and Individualism in a
Mercantile Class ofCitizens in Charleston 109
Jennifer L.Goloboy
9 Corporations and the Coalescence ofan Elite Class
in Philadelphia 123
Andrew M.Schocket
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viii Contents
10 Class,Discourse,and Industrialization in the
New American Republic 138
Lawrence A.Peskin
11 Sex and Other Middle-Class Pastimes in the
Life ofAnn Carson 156
Susan Branson
12 Leases and the Laboring Classes in
Revolutionary America 168
Thomas J.Humphrey
13 Class and Capital Punishment in Early Urban
North America 185
Gabriele Gottlieb
14 Class Stratification and Children’s Work in
Post-Revolutionary Urban America 198
Sharon Braslaw Sundue
15 Afterword:Constellations ofClass in Early North America
and the Atlantic World 213
Christopher Tomlins
Notes 235
List ofContributors 315
Index 319
Acknowledgments 327
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Ofall the hokum with which this country [the United States] is riddled,the
most odd is the common notion that it is free ofclass distinctions.
—W.Somerset Maugham
Though the conditions ofmankind are various,they may with propriety be
included under three denominations—the rich,the middling class,and the
poor.
—“An American”(Pennsylvania Gazette,December 24,1794)
The fears ofone class ofmen are not the measure ofthe rights ofanother.
—George Bancroft