Over the course of the eighteenth century; Anglo-Americans purchased an unprecedented number and array of goods. The Power of Objects in Eighteenth-Century British America investigates these diverse artifacts—from portraits and city views to gravestones; dressing furniture; and prosthetic devices—to explore how elite American consumers assembled objects to form a new civil society on the margins of the British Empire. In this interdisciplinary transatlantic study; artifacts emerge as key players in the formation of Anglo-American communities and eventually of American citizenship. Deftly interweaving analysis of images with furniture; architecture; clothing; and literary works; Van Horn reconstructs the networks of goods that bound together consumers in Boston; New York; Philadelphia; and Charleston.Moving beyond emulation and the desire for social status as the primary motivators for consumption; Van Horn shows that Anglo-Americans' material choices were intimately bound up with their efforts to distance themselves from Native Americans and African Americans. She also traces women's contested place in forging provincial culture. As encountered through a woman's application of makeup at her dressing table or an amputee's donning of a wooden leg after the Revolutionary War; material artifacts were far from passive markers of rank or political identification. They made Anglo-American society.
#1561037 in Books Adam Wesley Dean 2015-02-16Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.33 x .57 x 6.26l; 1.00 #File Name: 1469619911240 pagesAn Agrarian Republic Farming Antislavery Politics and Nature Parks in the Civil War Era Civil War America Paperback
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. it is easy to lose sight of the centrality of agrarian pursuits ...By Eric BurkeLiving in an age when so few Americans are engaged directly in the agricultural sector; it is easy to lose sight of the centrality of agrarian pursuits in the lives of our ancestors. Adam Dean reminds readers of this point as he adeptly navigates Republican political ideology and policy-making across the Civil War and Reconstruction era as interpreted by men who deeply valued the supposed virtues of the smallholding farmer. Early Republicans; he explains; were not the champions of industrialism we associate with Republican hegemony during the Gilded Age; but rather flirted with the Jeffersonian dream of an "agrarian republic" of smallholding yeomen farmers -- even to the extent of co-opting the name of the third President's party. By placing emphasis on Republican concerns over the future of American soil in the South and West; as well as the importance of proliferating diversified small-plot multi-generational farms (as opposed to wasteful mono-crop land monopolies in the South) in order to engender fidelity to the Union; Dean is able to connect several erstwhile seemingly disparate threads in early Republican policy-making. The book neglects Democratic Northerners who; while disproportionately prominent in urban areas as compared to Republicans; also included vast numbers of smallholding farmers embracing a very different political ideology. Still; while not a dramatic departure from the work of historians like Eric Foner; William Gienapp; and Mark Lause; Dean's analysis is a valuable supplement to our growing understanding of Republicans during the era -- most especially the ways in which the party's predominately agrarian constituency might have interpreted its highly controversial platform.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A great journey focused on the land issues of the mid ...By Lawrence N BenjaminIntelectually stimulating; challenging; and well written. A great journey focused on the land issues of the mid 19th century. Bravo!
