The American Bourgeoisie

What precisely constitutes an American bourgeoisie? Scholars have grappled with the question for a long time. Economic positions - the ownership of capital, for instance - most obviously defines this group. Control of resources cannot explain, however, the emergence of shared identities or the capacity for collective action: after all, economic interests frequently drove capital-rich Americans apart as they competed for markets or governmental favors. This book argues that one of the most important factors in this respect was the articulation of a shared culture, but this aspect has been neglected by most scholarship on the issue. This volume engages a fundamental disciplinary question about this period in American history: how did the bourgeoisie consolidate their power and fashion themselves not simply as economic leaders but as cultural innovators and arbiters? How did culture help them formulate a sense of themselves as a distinct social group with shared identities, while simultaneously setting themselves apart from other Americans?

ISBN 0230102948   Pages 320 ISBN13 9780230102941 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 540 Publisher Palgrave Macmillan   Published in Basingstoke Imprint Palgrave Macmillan   Height (mm) 240 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 159 Publication date 19 Jan 2011   Spine width (mm) 20 DEWEY 305.550973   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC22

		List of Images
		Acknowledgments
		Introduction by Julia Rosenbaum		1
Part I		Habits and Manners
1		Goodbye to the Marketplace: Food and Exclusivity in Nineteenth-Century New York by Anne Mendelson		11
2		"Natural Distinction": The American Bourgeois Search for Distinctive Signs in Europe by Maureen E. Montgomery		27
3		Henry James and the American Evolution of the Snob by Alide Cagidemetrio		45
4		Patina and Persistence: Miniature Patronage and Production in Antebellum Philadelphia by Anne Verplanck		63
5		The "Blending and Confusion" of Expensiveness and Beauty: Bourgeois Interiors by Katherine C. Grier		87
Part II		Networks and Institutions
6		Bourgeois Institution Builders: New York in the Nineteenth Century by Sven Beckert		103
7		The Steady Supporters of Order: American Mechanics' Institute Fairs as Icons of Bourgeois Culture by Ethan Robey		119
8		A Noble Pursuit?: Bourgeois America's Uses of Lineage by Francesca Morgan		135
9		Elite Women and Class Formation by Mary Rech Rockwell		153
10		Rediscovering the Bourgeoisie: Higher Education and Governing-Class Formation in the United States, 1870-1914 by Peter Dobkin Hall		167
Part III		The Public Sphere
11		Ordering the Social Sphere: Public Art and Boston's Bourgeoisie by Julia B. Rosenbaum		193
12		The Problem of Chicago by Paul DiMaggio		209
13		Bourgeois Appropriation of Music: Challenging Ethnicity, Class, and Gender by Michael Broyles		233
14		The Birth of the American Art Museum by Alan Wallach		247
		More...
		Index		279

"The American Bourgeoisie, with its richly nuanced case studies--ranging from food to geneology; education to music--gives a new cultural dimension to our understanding of class formation in the late nineteenth century. This book tells the story of how social, expressive, and institutional practices transformed raw economic resources into class identities that largely trumped occupational, ethnic, regional, and political loyalties. It reveals class formation to be fluid and contingent upon social, material, and ritual enactments evolving in tandem with shifts in capital. With its distinguished roster of contributors, this volume offers a vital new resource for cultural and social history, material culture, art history, and literary studies."--Angela Miller, Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Washington University "After three decades of intensive research on the European bourgeoisie, here comes the much-needed American counterpart. As in the European case, culture has gained center stage as a field of social demarcation and identification."--Ute Frevert, Director, Max Planck Institute for Human Development"As these lively and perceptive essays demonstrate, nineteenth-century Americans of wealth devoted enormous energy to developing manners and building cultural institutions that distinguished them from common people in an ostensibly democratic society. How wealthy men and women dined, traveled, displayed art, decorated their houses, identified their ancestors, and established museums, concert halls, and alumni associations all spoke to an aspiration to refine capital and establish the legitimacy of the power associated with it. These essays bring the process of class formation alive with satisfying attention to its material and cultural dimensions."--Elizabeth Blackmar, Professor of History, Columbia University"This is a wide-ranging collection of essays on aspects of elite American culture in the nineteenth century. One of its distinguishing feat

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