Kenneth Lipartito
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199251902
- eISBN:
- 9780191719059
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199251902.003.0004
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Business History
This chapter argues for historians to explore the ‘elective affinity’ between communal and utopian societies of 19th-century America and the managerial corporation. It explores the ways that American ...
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This chapter argues for historians to explore the ‘elective affinity’ between communal and utopian societies of 19th-century America and the managerial corporation. It explores the ways that American society sought to reconcile freedom with the growth of market culture through new disciplinary institutions designed to foster self control and to deal with the travails of laissez faire competition. These methods, practiced in famous utopian communities such as Oneida, used systems of management and control, and embraced early corporate forms of organization at a time when such methods and forms were uncommon in private business. Many utopian experiments in fact evolved into profit-making enterprises after the Civil War, while many of the architects of business corporations were often connected — by ties of blood or by their ideas — to the antebellum reform tradition. The chapter argues for historians to explore these cultural connections and to recognize the deeper cultural sources of the modern corporate organization.Less
This chapter argues for historians to explore the ‘elective affinity’ between communal and utopian societies of 19th-century America and the managerial corporation. It explores the ways that American society sought to reconcile freedom with the growth of market culture through new disciplinary institutions designed to foster self control and to deal with the travails of laissez faire competition. These methods, practiced in famous utopian communities such as Oneida, used systems of management and control, and embraced early corporate forms of organization at a time when such methods and forms were uncommon in private business. Many utopian experiments in fact evolved into profit-making enterprises after the Civil War, while many of the architects of business corporations were often connected — by ties of blood or by their ideas — to the antebellum reform tradition. The chapter argues for historians to explore these cultural connections and to recognize the deeper cultural sources of the modern corporate organization.
Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691142630
- eISBN:
- 9781400839766
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691142630.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter discusses the formation of political alliances centered on differences over racial politics in antebellum America. Even before there was a Constitution, there were pro-slavery and ...
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This chapter discusses the formation of political alliances centered on differences over racial politics in antebellum America. Even before there was a Constitution, there were pro-slavery and anti-slavery alliances in the not-so-United States. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, which embedded the rhetoric of human equality and inalienable rights into American political culture, still sought to justify tribal subjugation (by denouncing “merciless Indian Savages”) and to avoid criticism of chattel slavery (by editing out Jefferson's language attacking the slave trade). Throughout the antebellum era, pro-slavery forces retained great power, particularly in regard to the protection of slavery where it was already established. Moreover, the chapter considers how racial politics continued to shape American life—particularly for the disenfranchised people of color—during the period of transition after the Civil War.Less
This chapter discusses the formation of political alliances centered on differences over racial politics in antebellum America. Even before there was a Constitution, there were pro-slavery and anti-slavery alliances in the not-so-United States. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, which embedded the rhetoric of human equality and inalienable rights into American political culture, still sought to justify tribal subjugation (by denouncing “merciless Indian Savages”) and to avoid criticism of chattel slavery (by editing out Jefferson's language attacking the slave trade). Throughout the antebellum era, pro-slavery forces retained great power, particularly in regard to the protection of slavery where it was already established. Moreover, the chapter considers how racial politics continued to shape American life—particularly for the disenfranchised people of color—during the period of transition after the Civil War.
Mark David Spence
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195142433
- eISBN:
- 9780199848812
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195142433.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter provides a clear understanding of early preservationist thinking and better recognition of the changing condition that reshaped American ideas about wilderness and Indians at ...
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This chapter provides a clear understanding of early preservationist thinking and better recognition of the changing condition that reshaped American ideas about wilderness and Indians at mid-century. George Caitlin devoted his entire life to preserving and recording an “Indian wilderness.” His ideas about national parks somehow foreshadowed twentieth-century concerns and policies regarding wilderness preservation. To understand why Caitlin's proposal for a national park was superseded by the idealization of uninhabited landscapes in the late nineteenth century, it is important to situate it within the artistic, social, and political trends that shaped antebellum America. As Henry Brackenridge predicted, “different modes of life and habits altogether new” would transform American perceptions of the landscapes and peoples of the West. It was these new modes and habits and the policies they gendered that ultimately led to the creation of the first reservations and national parks later in the century.Less
This chapter provides a clear understanding of early preservationist thinking and better recognition of the changing condition that reshaped American ideas about wilderness and Indians at mid-century. George Caitlin devoted his entire life to preserving and recording an “Indian wilderness.” His ideas about national parks somehow foreshadowed twentieth-century concerns and policies regarding wilderness preservation. To understand why Caitlin's proposal for a national park was superseded by the idealization of uninhabited landscapes in the late nineteenth century, it is important to situate it within the artistic, social, and political trends that shaped antebellum America. As Henry Brackenridge predicted, “different modes of life and habits altogether new” would transform American perceptions of the landscapes and peoples of the West. It was these new modes and habits and the policies they gendered that ultimately led to the creation of the first reservations and national parks later in the century.
Trevor Burnard
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226286105
- eISBN:
- 9780226286242
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226286242.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
The plantation system was at its height after the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It made British America wealthy and valuable within the British Empire. Slavery and colonization were ...
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The plantation system was at its height after the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It made British America wealthy and valuable within the British Empire. Slavery and colonization were closely related but were problematic to imperial theorists like Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith. A detailed examination of the wealth of the plantations, however, shows that the plantation system was expansive, modern, and innovative. Contrary to earlier historiography, British American plantations did not decline over time but flourished in places like the American South and British Guiana into the nineteenth century. What needs to be explained is why a system that promoted social and economic inequality was supported by ordinary white men. The reason was that while rich men benefited most from living in slave societies, ordinary white men also received economic benefits, especially if they themselves became slave owners. The wealth of the plantations made imperial officials want to foster this type of colonization even if white population levels remained low. It encouraged, however, a short term attitude among planters and merchants to gaining money and increased tendencies to work slaves excessively hard. Slaves became disposable people as long as the slave trade allowed for fresh inputs of labor.Less
The plantation system was at its height after the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It made British America wealthy and valuable within the British Empire. Slavery and colonization were closely related but were problematic to imperial theorists like Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith. A detailed examination of the wealth of the plantations, however, shows that the plantation system was expansive, modern, and innovative. Contrary to earlier historiography, British American plantations did not decline over time but flourished in places like the American South and British Guiana into the nineteenth century. What needs to be explained is why a system that promoted social and economic inequality was supported by ordinary white men. The reason was that while rich men benefited most from living in slave societies, ordinary white men also received economic benefits, especially if they themselves became slave owners. The wealth of the plantations made imperial officials want to foster this type of colonization even if white population levels remained low. It encouraged, however, a short term attitude among planters and merchants to gaining money and increased tendencies to work slaves excessively hard. Slaves became disposable people as long as the slave trade allowed for fresh inputs of labor.
Stephen P. Rice
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520227811
- eISBN:
- 9780520926578
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520227811.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines the popular discourse on mechanization in antebellum America. It explains that though the presence of machines in the workplace was by no means the dominant reality, the extent ...
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This chapter examines the popular discourse on mechanization in antebellum America. It explains that though the presence of machines in the workplace was by no means the dominant reality, the extent to which mechanization figured in popular discussion outstripped its actual pace in the workplace. Men and women discussed new machinery in newspapers, periodicals, lectures, and sermons and they frequently wrote and spoke as if the machine was present everywhere. One site of mechanized production that was widely discussed during the antebellum decades was the textile mill.Less
This chapter examines the popular discourse on mechanization in antebellum America. It explains that though the presence of machines in the workplace was by no means the dominant reality, the extent to which mechanization figured in popular discussion outstripped its actual pace in the workplace. Men and women discussed new machinery in newspapers, periodicals, lectures, and sermons and they frequently wrote and spoke as if the machine was present everywhere. One site of mechanized production that was widely discussed during the antebellum decades was the textile mill.
Jenifer L. Barclay
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043727
- eISBN:
- 9780252052613
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043727.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book makes disability legible in the histories of both slavery and race, arguing that disability is a critical category of historical analysis. Bondage complicated and contributed to enslaved ...
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This book makes disability legible in the histories of both slavery and race, arguing that disability is a critical category of historical analysis. Bondage complicated and contributed to enslaved people’s experiences of complexly embodied conditions that ranged across the physical, sensory, cognitive, and psychological. Ableist histories of racial slavery have long overlooked how the social relations of disability shaped people’s everyday lives, particularly within enslaved families, communities, and culture. At the same time, antebellum Americans persistently constructed and framed racial ideology through ideas about disability, producing and naturalizing links between blackness and disability on the one hand and whiteness and ability on the other. Disability was central to the larger relations of power that structured antebellum society and figured prominently in racial projects that unfolded in the laws of slavery, medical discourses of race, pro- and antislavery political rhetoric, and popular culture like blackface minstrelsy and freak shows. The disabling images of blackness created in these various registers of American life resounded long after slavery’s end, gradually fading into less specific notions of black inferiority and damage imagery. The Mark of Slavery simultaneously examines relations of power and the materiality of the body and makes clear that just as blackness and disability were not mutually exclusive categories, enslaved people’s lived experiences of disability were not entirely separate from and unrelated to representations of disability that fueled racial ideology.Less
This book makes disability legible in the histories of both slavery and race, arguing that disability is a critical category of historical analysis. Bondage complicated and contributed to enslaved people’s experiences of complexly embodied conditions that ranged across the physical, sensory, cognitive, and psychological. Ableist histories of racial slavery have long overlooked how the social relations of disability shaped people’s everyday lives, particularly within enslaved families, communities, and culture. At the same time, antebellum Americans persistently constructed and framed racial ideology through ideas about disability, producing and naturalizing links between blackness and disability on the one hand and whiteness and ability on the other. Disability was central to the larger relations of power that structured antebellum society and figured prominently in racial projects that unfolded in the laws of slavery, medical discourses of race, pro- and antislavery political rhetoric, and popular culture like blackface minstrelsy and freak shows. The disabling images of blackness created in these various registers of American life resounded long after slavery’s end, gradually fading into less specific notions of black inferiority and damage imagery. The Mark of Slavery simultaneously examines relations of power and the materiality of the body and makes clear that just as blackness and disability were not mutually exclusive categories, enslaved people’s lived experiences of disability were not entirely separate from and unrelated to representations of disability that fueled racial ideology.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226533230
- eISBN:
- 9780226533254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226533254.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the history of secularism in antebellum American. This volume tells a story about the feelings, epistemic moves, and habits ...
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This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the history of secularism in antebellum American. This volume tells a story about the feelings, epistemic moves, and habits that made the nova effect a living possibility. It argues that the secular imaginary occurred at the levels of emotion and mood and shows that the “true religion” known and practiced by a significant number of antebellum Americans was anything but natural. This volume also describes the way which true religion carried a normative sociality to which individuals aligned themselves.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the history of secularism in antebellum American. This volume tells a story about the feelings, epistemic moves, and habits that made the nova effect a living possibility. It argues that the secular imaginary occurred at the levels of emotion and mood and shows that the “true religion” known and practiced by a significant number of antebellum Americans was anything but natural. This volume also describes the way which true religion carried a normative sociality to which individuals aligned themselves.
Michael J. Pfeifer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036132
- eISBN:
- 9780252093098
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036132.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter charts the emergence of racially motivated lynching in the antebellum United States. During the antebellum era, practices of collective murder took root on the cotton and resource ...
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This chapter charts the emergence of racially motivated lynching in the antebellum United States. During the antebellum era, practices of collective murder took root on the cotton and resource extraction frontiers as white planters, farmers, and miners stepped outside of formal law to execute slaves, free blacks, Indians, and Mexicans who challenged white authority with acts of resistance or criminality. The chapter documents how southern planters created legal institutions that protected the master class's interest in slave property, but also how antebellum southern whites resorted to the lynching of slaves through burning or hanging at times when the master's property interest was effectively nullified by a slave's murder of a member of the master class, or when portions of the white community rejected the criminal justice system's ability to enforce racial control.Less
This chapter charts the emergence of racially motivated lynching in the antebellum United States. During the antebellum era, practices of collective murder took root on the cotton and resource extraction frontiers as white planters, farmers, and miners stepped outside of formal law to execute slaves, free blacks, Indians, and Mexicans who challenged white authority with acts of resistance or criminality. The chapter documents how southern planters created legal institutions that protected the master class's interest in slave property, but also how antebellum southern whites resorted to the lynching of slaves through burning or hanging at times when the master's property interest was effectively nullified by a slave's murder of a member of the master class, or when portions of the white community rejected the criminal justice system's ability to enforce racial control.
Kolan Thomas Morelock
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813125046
- eISBN:
- 9780813135113
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813125046.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The victory parade that followed the 1896 oratorical contest in the streets of Lexington served as a manifestation of one of the student group's oldest traditions. Even before the war, public ...
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The victory parade that followed the 1896 oratorical contest in the streets of Lexington served as a manifestation of one of the student group's oldest traditions. Even before the war, public parading and its attributed merriment and notoriety serves as a departure point for analyzing the development of these societies, particularly in one of Lexington's most prominent collegiate institutions. Honor and status were appropriated to the participants of this type of cultural performance, and these events were viewed as “cultural performances” in antebellum America. This chapter attempts to explore the various features and the proliferation of collegiate literary societies in Lexington during the nineteenth century.Less
The victory parade that followed the 1896 oratorical contest in the streets of Lexington served as a manifestation of one of the student group's oldest traditions. Even before the war, public parading and its attributed merriment and notoriety serves as a departure point for analyzing the development of these societies, particularly in one of Lexington's most prominent collegiate institutions. Honor and status were appropriated to the participants of this type of cultural performance, and these events were viewed as “cultural performances” in antebellum America. This chapter attempts to explore the various features and the proliferation of collegiate literary societies in Lexington during the nineteenth century.
Michael J. Pfeifer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036132
- eISBN:
- 9780252093098
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036132.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter traces, in the social and legal context of the southern, midwestern, and western frontiers, the lethal transition from the nondeadly collective violence (typically floggings) perpetrated ...
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This chapter traces, in the social and legal context of the southern, midwestern, and western frontiers, the lethal transition from the nondeadly collective violence (typically floggings) perpetrated by regulator movements in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to the prolific extralegal hangings of gamblers, alleged slave insurrectionists, horse thieves, and murderers in Mississippi, Iowa, and Wyoming Territory from the mid-1830s through the late 1860s. Furthermore, the chapter looks at the phenomenon of vigilantism and how it operates within the legal context of the period. Vigilantes articulated a preference for criminal justice that privileged local opinion over a neutral commitment to due process law and the rights of the defendant, a stance that rejected an emerging commitment in reformist circles and in the legal culture to the notion of a fair-handed, omnipotent state as arbitrator of community differences and guarantor of individual rights.Less
This chapter traces, in the social and legal context of the southern, midwestern, and western frontiers, the lethal transition from the nondeadly collective violence (typically floggings) perpetrated by regulator movements in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to the prolific extralegal hangings of gamblers, alleged slave insurrectionists, horse thieves, and murderers in Mississippi, Iowa, and Wyoming Territory from the mid-1830s through the late 1860s. Furthermore, the chapter looks at the phenomenon of vigilantism and how it operates within the legal context of the period. Vigilantes articulated a preference for criminal justice that privileged local opinion over a neutral commitment to due process law and the rights of the defendant, a stance that rejected an emerging commitment in reformist circles and in the legal culture to the notion of a fair-handed, omnipotent state as arbitrator of community differences and guarantor of individual rights.
Jayme A. Sokolow
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814740910
- eISBN:
- 9780814786796
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814740910.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter examines the Jews' opposition to slavery and their participation in antebellum America's most controversial reform: abolitionism. It first looks at two groups of Jews who migrated to ...
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This chapter examines the Jews' opposition to slavery and their participation in antebellum America's most controversial reform: abolitionism. It first looks at two groups of Jews who migrated to America following the revolutions of 1848. The largest group migrated because they were determined to find the personal opportunity, economic freedom, and civic equality denied them in Europe. The second, smaller group fled to America because they had participated in the 1848 revolutions or were opposed to the restoration of the conservative regimes. The chapter then considers Jewish abolitionists' use of their liberal European beliefs and Reform Judaism to defend antebellum Blacks, along with their antislavery activities throughout the free states, Kansas, and Maryland. It also explores how different strains of Western and Jewish thought converged in the mid-nineteenth century to produce the particular emotional and intellectual intensity of the Jewish antislavery movement.Less
This chapter examines the Jews' opposition to slavery and their participation in antebellum America's most controversial reform: abolitionism. It first looks at two groups of Jews who migrated to America following the revolutions of 1848. The largest group migrated because they were determined to find the personal opportunity, economic freedom, and civic equality denied them in Europe. The second, smaller group fled to America because they had participated in the 1848 revolutions or were opposed to the restoration of the conservative regimes. The chapter then considers Jewish abolitionists' use of their liberal European beliefs and Reform Judaism to defend antebellum Blacks, along with their antislavery activities throughout the free states, Kansas, and Maryland. It also explores how different strains of Western and Jewish thought converged in the mid-nineteenth century to produce the particular emotional and intellectual intensity of the Jewish antislavery movement.
Drew Maciag
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801448959
- eISBN:
- 9780801467875
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801448959.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter looks at the prevailing intellectual perspectives on Edmund Burke in postrevolutionary America. Burke's impact was more directly felt during the turbulent era of the American Revolution, ...
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This chapter looks at the prevailing intellectual perspectives on Edmund Burke in postrevolutionary America. Burke's impact was more directly felt during the turbulent era of the American Revolution, but during the more peaceful antebellum period the primary driving force of human agency in America shifted from a relative handful of important men to a larger and more diverse collection of citizens intent on reaping the benefits of their new social, political, and economic order. Unfortunately, in this new, progressive, democratic era, no national self-image could have been less hospitable to the exaggerated Anglo-traditionalism of Edmund Burke. Yet the chapter notes that Burke's ideals have gained purchase even in this new era of national development, as illustrated by the later treatment of Burke in such eminent circles as the transcendentalists and the Jacksonians, and even by the historian George Bancroft himself.Less
This chapter looks at the prevailing intellectual perspectives on Edmund Burke in postrevolutionary America. Burke's impact was more directly felt during the turbulent era of the American Revolution, but during the more peaceful antebellum period the primary driving force of human agency in America shifted from a relative handful of important men to a larger and more diverse collection of citizens intent on reaping the benefits of their new social, political, and economic order. Unfortunately, in this new, progressive, democratic era, no national self-image could have been less hospitable to the exaggerated Anglo-traditionalism of Edmund Burke. Yet the chapter notes that Burke's ideals have gained purchase even in this new era of national development, as illustrated by the later treatment of Burke in such eminent circles as the transcendentalists and the Jacksonians, and even by the historian George Bancroft himself.
David Haven Blake
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300110173
- eISBN:
- 9780300134810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300110173.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter examines the subject of publicity, a concept that had both a political and promotional meaning in antebellum America. It analyzes the works of Walt Whitman alongside the rise of ...
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This chapter examines the subject of publicity, a concept that had both a political and promotional meaning in antebellum America. It analyzes the works of Walt Whitman alongside the rise of advertising and compares his unrhymed lines to the jingle of commercial verse. It also discusses how Whitman adapted the lessons from advertising to an array of promotional activities, such as the creation of poetics that promised to improve his readers' lives.Less
This chapter examines the subject of publicity, a concept that had both a political and promotional meaning in antebellum America. It analyzes the works of Walt Whitman alongside the rise of advertising and compares his unrhymed lines to the jingle of commercial verse. It also discusses how Whitman adapted the lessons from advertising to an array of promotional activities, such as the creation of poetics that promised to improve his readers' lives.
Jenifer L. Barclay
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043727
- eISBN:
- 9780252052613
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043727.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter introduces the ways that The Mark of Slavery moves between experiences of disability in everyday enslaved life and the discursive relationship between racism and ableism forged in ...
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This chapter introduces the ways that The Mark of Slavery moves between experiences of disability in everyday enslaved life and the discursive relationship between racism and ableism forged in antebellum medicine, law, politics, and popular culture. The “new” disability history and, in particular, this field’s use of a social (as opposed to a medical) model of disability is central to the project of writing a disability history of slavery. Disability’s power to stigmatize derived from its relationship to abnormality and its ability to rationalize inequality hinged on one’s real or imagined proximity to it. As disability intertwined with the broader metalanguage of race in the antebellum years, it minimized or amplified specific qualities imagined as innate to whiteness or blackness, racializing and delimiting “normal” bodies.Less
This chapter introduces the ways that The Mark of Slavery moves between experiences of disability in everyday enslaved life and the discursive relationship between racism and ableism forged in antebellum medicine, law, politics, and popular culture. The “new” disability history and, in particular, this field’s use of a social (as opposed to a medical) model of disability is central to the project of writing a disability history of slavery. Disability’s power to stigmatize derived from its relationship to abnormality and its ability to rationalize inequality hinged on one’s real or imagined proximity to it. As disability intertwined with the broader metalanguage of race in the antebellum years, it minimized or amplified specific qualities imagined as innate to whiteness or blackness, racializing and delimiting “normal” bodies.
Michael J. Pfeifer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036132
- eISBN:
- 9780252093098
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036132.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This deeply researched prequel to the author's 2006 study Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947, analyzes the foundations of lynching in American social history. Scrutinizing the ...
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This deeply researched prequel to the author's 2006 study Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947, analyzes the foundations of lynching in American social history. Scrutinizing the vigilante movements and lynching violence that occurred in the middle decades of the nineteenth century on the Southern, Midwestern, and far Western frontiers, this book offers new insights into collective violence in the pre-Civil War era. The book examines the antecedents of American lynching in an early modern Anglo-European folk and legal heritage. This is the first book to consider the crucial emergence of the practice of lynching slaves in antebellum America, and it also leads the way in analyzing the history of American lynching in a global context. Arguing that the origins of lynching cannot be restricted to any particular region, the book shows how the national and transatlantic context is essential for understanding how whites used mob violence to enforce the racial and class hierarchies across the United States.Less
This deeply researched prequel to the author's 2006 study Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947, analyzes the foundations of lynching in American social history. Scrutinizing the vigilante movements and lynching violence that occurred in the middle decades of the nineteenth century on the Southern, Midwestern, and far Western frontiers, this book offers new insights into collective violence in the pre-Civil War era. The book examines the antecedents of American lynching in an early modern Anglo-European folk and legal heritage. This is the first book to consider the crucial emergence of the practice of lynching slaves in antebellum America, and it also leads the way in analyzing the history of American lynching in a global context. Arguing that the origins of lynching cannot be restricted to any particular region, the book shows how the national and transatlantic context is essential for understanding how whites used mob violence to enforce the racial and class hierarchies across the United States.
Moses Roper
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807869659
- eISBN:
- 9781469602912
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807869666_roper
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book can be read as an extended autobiographical meditation on the meaning of race in antebellum America. First published in England, the text documents the life of Moses Roper, beginning with ...
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This book can be read as an extended autobiographical meditation on the meaning of race in antebellum America. First published in England, the text documents the life of Moses Roper, beginning with his birth in North Carolina and chronicling his travels through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Roper was able to obtain employment on a schooner named The Fox, and in 1834 he made his way to freedom aboard the vessel. Once in Boston, he was quickly recruited as a signatory to the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), but he sailed to England the next year. Roper's narrative is especially interesting because although it was published after Frederick Douglass's much-heralded 1845 Narrative, Roper actually preceded Douglass in his involvement in AASS as well as in his travel to the United Kingdom. This text is often cited by literary scholars because of its length, its extensive detail, and its unforgiving portrayal of enslaved life in the “land of the free.”Less
This book can be read as an extended autobiographical meditation on the meaning of race in antebellum America. First published in England, the text documents the life of Moses Roper, beginning with his birth in North Carolina and chronicling his travels through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Roper was able to obtain employment on a schooner named The Fox, and in 1834 he made his way to freedom aboard the vessel. Once in Boston, he was quickly recruited as a signatory to the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), but he sailed to England the next year. Roper's narrative is especially interesting because although it was published after Frederick Douglass's much-heralded 1845 Narrative, Roper actually preceded Douglass in his involvement in AASS as well as in his travel to the United Kingdom. This text is often cited by literary scholars because of its length, its extensive detail, and its unforgiving portrayal of enslaved life in the “land of the free.”
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226533230
- eISBN:
- 9780226533254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226533254.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines the life of Lewis Henry Morgan in the context of secularism in antebellum America. It explains that Morgan's intersected with evangelical revivalism and séance spiritualism and ...
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This chapter examines the life of Lewis Henry Morgan in the context of secularism in antebellum America. It explains that Morgan's intersected with evangelical revivalism and séance spiritualism and that he distanced himself from the formalities of religion choosing to describes his own scientific pursuits in the language of spirit and spirituality. This chapter also highlights the contribution of Morgan to the culture concept, a key term of anthropological comprehension.Less
This chapter examines the life of Lewis Henry Morgan in the context of secularism in antebellum America. It explains that Morgan's intersected with evangelical revivalism and séance spiritualism and that he distanced himself from the formalities of religion choosing to describes his own scientific pursuits in the language of spirit and spirituality. This chapter also highlights the contribution of Morgan to the culture concept, a key term of anthropological comprehension.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226533230
- eISBN:
- 9780226533254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226533254.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter focuses on the question of agency in the context of secularism in antebellum American. It analyzes engagement with machines as depicted in the lives of Captain Ahab and John Murray Spear ...
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This chapter focuses on the question of agency in the context of secularism in antebellum American. It analyzes engagement with machines as depicted in the lives of Captain Ahab and John Murray Spear and suggests that they represent a new kind of agency born of deterministic schemes. This chapter also considers the powers of public Protestantism during the 1850s and examines the force relations that were involved in and established by conceiving of and inhabiting religion in a particular way.Less
This chapter focuses on the question of agency in the context of secularism in antebellum American. It analyzes engagement with machines as depicted in the lives of Captain Ahab and John Murray Spear and suggests that they represent a new kind of agency born of deterministic schemes. This chapter also considers the powers of public Protestantism during the 1850s and examines the force relations that were involved in and established by conceiving of and inhabiting religion in a particular way.
Myra B. Young Armstead
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814705100
- eISBN:
- 9780814707920
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814705100.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In early and antebellum America, gardening was more than an application of science to fruit, vegetable, and flower cultivation. It was a way to affirm male hegemony, one's social class, civic virtue, ...
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In early and antebellum America, gardening was more than an application of science to fruit, vegetable, and flower cultivation. It was a way to affirm male hegemony, one's social class, civic virtue, commitment to a dominant American political economy, and one's respectability. Among the nation's black population, the forms that gardening sometimes took often reflected African farming and aesthetic norms. This chapter examines where James F. Brown stood in relation to these possibilities. It argues that as a gardener-employee Brown promoted the goals of leading horticulturalists; according to contemporary conceptions, his work by definition assisted in improving the moral climate, and his displays helped make the “gradual improvement in our [American] markets clearly manifest,” as a New York agricultural periodical explained garden shows. Gardening also provided a structure for Brown to prove his self-moderation and steadiness of character.Less
In early and antebellum America, gardening was more than an application of science to fruit, vegetable, and flower cultivation. It was a way to affirm male hegemony, one's social class, civic virtue, commitment to a dominant American political economy, and one's respectability. Among the nation's black population, the forms that gardening sometimes took often reflected African farming and aesthetic norms. This chapter examines where James F. Brown stood in relation to these possibilities. It argues that as a gardener-employee Brown promoted the goals of leading horticulturalists; according to contemporary conceptions, his work by definition assisted in improving the moral climate, and his displays helped make the “gradual improvement in our [American] markets clearly manifest,” as a New York agricultural periodical explained garden shows. Gardening also provided a structure for Brown to prove his self-moderation and steadiness of character.
Brent M. Rogers (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501716737
- eISBN:
- 9781501716744
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501716737.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter talks about municipal and territorial authorities that declared martial law within the United States, in which two occurrences involved members of the Church of Jesus Christ of ...
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This chapter talks about municipal and territorial authorities that declared martial law within the United States, in which two occurrences involved members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1840s and 1850s. It investigates Mormon cases that are set against the context of contemporaneous debates about martial law that illuminate antebellum power politics. It also analyzes the perception of Latter-day Saints and minority groups in general during the era of American political culture. The chapter discusses the duality of the rhetoric surrounding martial law, which elucidates a shifting American mindset that clung to the revolutionary-era ideology invested in a weak government. It describes the tensions among local, state, and federal governments that deal with martial law declarations and reveal the fragility of sovereignty in antebellum America.Less
This chapter talks about municipal and territorial authorities that declared martial law within the United States, in which two occurrences involved members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 1840s and 1850s. It investigates Mormon cases that are set against the context of contemporaneous debates about martial law that illuminate antebellum power politics. It also analyzes the perception of Latter-day Saints and minority groups in general during the era of American political culture. The chapter discusses the duality of the rhetoric surrounding martial law, which elucidates a shifting American mindset that clung to the revolutionary-era ideology invested in a weak government. It describes the tensions among local, state, and federal governments that deal with martial law declarations and reveal the fragility of sovereignty in antebellum America.