Popular Politics in Early America – Page 9 – Just another My blog Sites site

October 9, 2013

White Collar Awakening

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In A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, Paul E. Johnson depicts the rapid growth of Rochester, using its development to represent major themes occurring around the United States. Notably, he depicts the significance of the Second Great Awakening in Rochester, largely led by Charles Finney. Here, the Second Great Awakening was a white-collar led movement, much like many popular movements in the past and today in which privileged members of society are able to influence the lower classes into following their desired course of action. Through such activism, however, communities such as Rochester could become more socially unified.

The example of Rochester during the Second Great Awakening provides a perfect example for the ability of religion to act as a uniting factor, as I discussed in my post last week. I also noted the potential for religion to be a diversifying issue on a larger scale, some of which was portrayed in the masonic movements in Rochester. In large, however, Charles Finney and the Great Awakening provided a means for the Rochester community to come together, as the revivals became widely attended, extremely public, and the subject of much conversation in the town. Although its existence could be credited to moral movements sparked by the white-collar members of society such as temperance, these religious revivals were able to unite people of all classes as they were placed in equal playing ground in the eyes of God.

Price notes in his post that Rochester was made up of a diverse group of inhabitants, all of which notably have a similar characteristic: to either start anew or “make it big.” Although Finney was invited to Rochester, one cannot help but question his true motives in his revivals. Orators in the Great Awakenings are often critiqued in order to determine whether they truly had a desire to speak God’s word, or if they were simply skilled speakers looking to become famous. It is apparent that Finney made a name for himself in Rochester, and significant how Johnson made sure to clearly note that his revivals were extremely public. He did, however, also note that Finney had a moral influence on the community that led to general improvement. It is an interesting argument, however, and one that would be difficult to prove outright.

Whether his intentions were for morality or “to make it big”, there is no doubt that Finney’s revivals in Rochester unified the community and lad a lasting moral effect. In this sense, Rochester was a microcosm, also mentioned by Price, as religious revivals throughout the United States during the Second Great Awakening had a similar effect. Rochester, however, is interesting due to the expedited nature of its development economically, socially, and mora

October 9, 2013

Rochester, of Social Control

, It is often said that the power of observation grants an enormous amount of power over others. From the panopticon jail where the inmates are perpetually kept alert by the possibility of a guard watching them to a cop on the highway, where just the sight of a police car can stop a speeding automobile in its tracks. Paul E. Johnson applies this theory to the shopkeepers and businessmen in many passages on economy, religion and social functions throughout A Shopkeeper’s Millennium.

In the early 1820s when the businessmen often housed and interacted with their employees for extensive periods of time, the upper class members could exercise subtle but significant power over the people they housed. They would drink with them, socialize and otherwise engage with them as though they were part of the family. This influence of businessmen was evident in that they would initiate trends of social behavior that were appropriate for different events such as drinking and socializing, which their employees would readily adopt in order to conform to the town’s standards and follow the lead of their boss whom they assumed ascribed to the common tradition. When it came to pass, however, that these businessmen opted for a more private life and they evicted many of their workers, the power and influence they had once possessed dissipated and two separate social spheres were created.

These social spheres culminated in a society where the wealthier peoples of Rochester still retained a large amount of power over their workers but in their private affairs the workers could get away with whatever they wanted from wanton drunkenness to abstaining from attending church. This kind of divergent behavior directly stemmed from the absence of a “moral authority” which would enforce temperance restrictions and Christian principles upon them. Johnson explains this progression, saying “but while masters asked wage earners to give up their evil ways, they turned workers out of their homes and into streets and neighborhoods where drinking remained a normal part of life.” This kind of condescending rhetoric aimed at the marginalized factions of society did little to relieve the tensions permeating the stratified peoples of Rochester.

This sort of behavior demonstrates the evolution in the Rochester community from 1820 to 1830. Price mentions that “before the religious behavior of 1830, the relationship was impersonal and strictly businesslike.” I am not sure if he means to address the newfound religious dichotomy in Rochester or the work scene, but I see it in a different light. Prior to the religious revivals and Finney’s actions, the workers and lay-people of the town had lived with their business leaders in a sort of mutual bond where they spent time together with their families and otherwise lived relatively harmoniously. This was a relationship not marked simply by business. After the religious revivals when the churches were filled with majority-upper class peoples, I believe the religious and geographical disparities fostered a greater sense of impersonality.

I would also like to question Johnson’s assertion that “Finney’s male converts were driven to religion because they had abdicated their roles as eighteenth-century heads of households.” This seems to be a fairly vague generalization of the social realities of Rochester. Men did not simply give up their positions as heads of house but instead opted to wield different types of power and administrate their business and the household from a more manufacture-oriented point of view and not only as someone who has symbolic, economic power. In the wake of the temperance movement, women would play larger roles in being moral authorities for sinners to aspire to. This kind of behavior is why their was such a vast economic, social and religious gap between the rich and poor peoples of the town.

October 9, 2013

The Heart and Soul of The United States States: Rochester, New York

In Paul E. Johnson’s “A Shopkeeper’s Millenium,” he tries to make a case for the connections between politics, religion, and the market in relation to the religious revival that occurred in Rochester, New York in the late 1820s to early 1830s. At times, the connection is brought to light, like when he states “The political dividing line was not social class but family jealousies compounded by religion and geographic origins” (65). This quote relates back to his discussion regarding the feud between the Rochesters and the Bucktails in both a political and religious sphere. Yet, statements such as these are actually the only places the connections are made clear. Most of the piece is a dense narrative that mentions a series of people, their origins, their work, who they were associated with, and so on. It is easy to find yourself five pages into a chapter and be completely unaware as to what Johnson is arguing at that moment. Without the occasional sentence declaring a connection between one of the three ideas, it is easy to not see the association at all, which I believe hurts Johnson’s argument in the piece as a whole.

Though Johnson’s piece does suffer from this flaw, it is nice to see my hometown gaining some recognition for once. An interesting piece that I noticed in “A Shopkeeper’s Millennium” that has continued to this day is the business associations amongst relatives. Johnson mentions how most of the first men to settle and cultivate business in Rochester did so through family connections (25). This idea is continued further, as Johnson asserts that businesses were also brought into existence through in-law connections or close personal friendships (27). In today’s Rochester, this same idea has continued. A number of law firms are family run between brothers. Even more so than this, the biggest business to come out of Rochester, Wegmans, is completely family run through relatives and in-laws. For instance, Danny Wegman’s step-son-in-law is head of Wegmans’ liquor department throughout all of its stores. It’s somewhat nice to see how the connections that spurred Rochester’s growth in the early 19^th century is the thing that is still keeping the city a profitable place to live.

In response to Ben’s post on Johnson’s choice to use Rochester for this type of study, I completely agree. As Ben describes in his post, “Rochester was also a blend of so much of the rest of the country” (Benjamin Hartshorn, Philadelphia, PA). This statement could not be more accurate to describe Rochester during the early 19^th century. Being an inland city, it featured many of the characteristics that city would that was distant from the ocean, like focusing on agriculture. Yet, by having the Erie Canal, it connected Rochesterians to major cities like New York through the Hudson River, and the rest of the country and world from there. This city also featured a visible diversity in the classes of people that resided within the city’s bounds. From the wealthy land owners down to the unskilled laborers, Rochester had it all (still does too). Being a blend of the rest of the United States, Rochester was a great choice by Johnson to study regarding the effects of the Second Great Awakening. Though, as I said before, his study features some flaws because of the lack of clear connections between his central ideas.

October 9, 2013

Rochester Was the Right Choice

I believe that Paul Johnson’s decision to use Rochester, New York as his focus case study was an excellent decision for many reasons. First, as Dr. Shrout mentioned in class, it is illogical and inconvenient to do a detailed and lengthy study like this with multiple communities. The records that Johnson uses are specific to the locality, and therefore he would have had to travel often to do a study with multiple communities. I like that Johnson admits that Rochester may not be the most representative community for the subject of the great awakening. Rochester is not the typical revival story, but it is such an extraordinary one that we can learn so much from studying it.

Another reason Rochester is a smart place to study is because Charles Finney spent so much time there. The Second Great Awakening took place all over the United States, but what I remember about the revivals from high school history textbooks is the burned-over region in New York and Charles Finney. Using a place that Finney preached at for so long makes sense to me because I view him as the most famous and accomplished Second Great Awakening minister.

Rochester was also a blend of so much of the rest of the country. It was the first major inland city. Yet, the canal kept it connected to the powerful cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and even London. At the same time it was connected with the country side. There was also a large amount of diversity in wealth and professions. You had the wealthy land owning farmers who gave Rochester its name and beginnings and there was the growing intercity community that consisted of master workers and shopkeepers along with a fluid and ever-changing group of journeyman craftsmen. Johnson gives us insight into all the different types of people living in Rochester so that we are able to see the diversity and how each class of people made their religious decisions.

Paul Johnson also did a good job balancing specifics with generalizations. He gives individual stories of families that began the city (like Colonel Rochester’s family) and of poor, orphaned men who became the extremely wealthy in Rochester (like Thomas Kempshall and Abelard Reynolds). He balanced this with good statistics and charts that allowed him to make broader generalizations. On the religious side, he gave specific examples of converts with charts of profession and percent change (of church membership). This allowed him to make inferences about why groups of merchants, master shoemakers, doctors, or lawyers did or did not convert with Finney. I found that most of the inferences that he made, I bought. For example, Johnson wrote about the reasons that so many master workmen converted, yet these reasons did not explain why lawyers also had a high conversion rate. Johnson explained this high conversion rate with details about Finney’s past as a lawyer and how most lawyers were politicians that could not resist the church. Overall, I thought that Johnson did a good job using specific details from his research in Rochester to make generalizations and explain some of the reasons for the huge revival in the city.

Price makes several great comments in his blog this week. The only part I disagree with is his criticism of Johnson’s generalizations and simplifications. While I do agree that some of Johnson’s statements may have oversimplified things, I think that it is alright to do that in a historical paper. It is impossible to study every single person in the town. Johnson studied a few specific people and statistics, and then this allowed him to make broader generalizations. The nature of historical studies will not account for every example. Price argues that Johnson didn’t take into account all of the nuances of the town. I see his point, but I believe that the nature of this topic and history itself doesn’t allow for Johnson to view all the nuances.

October 8, 2013

Rochester: American Microcosm

The Shopkeeper’s Millennium is my second trip up the Genesee River Valley with Paul E. Johnson, my first being Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper, an assigned reading from last year. Much like Sam Patch, Johnson uses Rochester as a grand specimen for larger American phenomena during the Industrial Revolution, with Patch focusing on the strains of labor and Millennium on social and religious evolution. While Sam Patch provides the chronicle of a wage labor driven into alcoholism, depression, a fall-diving career, and a tragic death (in Rochester, no less), The Shopkeeper’s Millennium presents an exposé of a sinful, depraved mill town transforming into an (on-the-surface) orderly, God-fearing church town thanks to the Second Great Awakening. Johnson argues that the religious and moral revival in 1830-31 amongst the town’s entrepreneurial class led to heightened labor discipline, increased calls for temperance, and, eventually, a need for a new party system to address their concerns and desires for reform. However, he occasionally makes sweeping generalizations that oversimplify his subject and weaken his argument.

Rochester was a logical choice for Johnson to base his research. It was a blend of all worlds: east and west, agricultural and industrial, urban and rural. Also, its location square in the middle of New York’s “Burned-Over” district made it a hotbed for religious, political, and social turmoil. It had all sorts of characters and classes: migrants hoping to start anew, settlers hoping to make it to the frontier, and entrepreneurs and businessmen hoping to make it big. Make no mistake- Rochester was still a town thoroughly divided by class, beginning with the powerful families who settled the area around 1815 (including Nathaniel Rochester himself). As a result, the consequences of industrialization follow the patterns seen elsewhere. Business owners became less and less a part of the productive process until they were merely salesmen. The workers were pushed back from the eye of the consumer and the owner. They lived in separate neighborhoods and social spheres. Before the religious revival of 1830, the relationship was impersonal and strictly businesslike.

Johnson then makes a noteworthy argument that more factors than just wealth and profit played into American social interaction. While Alex’s post on the “Hydra” argues that “it’s all about class” when it comes to labor relations, Johnson stresses that the reinvigoration of religion, especially amongst the business classes, had a redefining role in labor, politics, and social life. While the businessman of the 1820s would “dominate his wife and children, work irregular hours, consume enormous amounts of alcohol, and seldom vote or go to church”, the businessman of the 1830s was sober, religious, and intent on instilling moral values in his community (8). They would prevent drunkenness amongst their workers on the job and crusade for temperance off the job, while campaigning for “moral” political candidates and movements. By 1830, temperance would become “a middle-class obsession”, signifying the self-given responsibility of the bourgeoisie class to govern the morality of the lower classes. The fiasco created by the Anti-Masonic Party in 1826 displayed the great power of the middle-class in obtaining political power from the “elite families”, and it assisted in undermining the already unstable party system of the mid-1820s.

Overall, Johnson uses the Rochester model well as a microcosm of America, and he backs up his points with comments from residents, newspaper columns, advertisements, economic data, and even city geography. His maps provide great insight into how the inhabitants divided the city into business and residential spheres as well as how the classes separated themselves. However, some of his more sweeping claims concerning the divisions between the business and working classes are questionable and unsubstantiated. For example, he declares “the fifth-ward neighborhood known as Dublin spent Sundays drunk and Mondays visiting their friends” (42). It seems unlikely that no members of this working-class group would have a church affiliation, or could even stand being sober on a Sunday. While these businessmen and working class groups are largely homogenous and consistent amongst themselves, I believe they are still more nuanced and sophisticated than Johnson portrays them to be.

October 7, 2013

Some interesting historical confluences

Firstly, today is the 250th anniversary of George III’s proclamation of 1763, which created the boundary line prohibiting American colonial settlement in the west of Britain’s North American territories. You can read a few takes on the global significance of the proclamation here.

Secondly, here is an interesting article on several Colorado counties debates about whether to secede, form a new state, or join Wyoming, suggesting that the debates about secession that characterized 1790s Pennsylvania are alive and well today.

October 3, 2013

Religious Revolutionaries

In analyzing the 18^th Century Age of revolutions, interesting parallels between scholarly writings were drawn upon by Shrout and Westbury regarding the relationships of the various revolutions in the Atlantic World. While the argument that ties were felt between revolutionary actors in different areas was legitimate, I found the mention of religion shortly after particularly intriguing. While scholars indicated religion as an organizational factor central to the lives of people in the Age of Revolutions, particularly in the cases of Equiano and the Salzburgs, others such as Gillikin argued that religion was a fracturing identity. Although I have not extensively researched the topic, I would argue that religions effectiveness in revolutionary organization was entirely reliant on the demographic of the rebels.

For example, a country with a recognized state church would find its members much more able to use said church’s institutions as a means to congregate the populace to discuss and resolve issues or make a plan of action on a wide-spread basis that would experience less division because of a greater unanimity of beliefs. A country with no established church, such as the United States, would cater to small-scale organization through religious entities but would find difficulty in finding a consensus cross-religion. Granted, citizens of the United States would be able to find similarities in their desire to express religion freely, but when deciding on major beliefs of a revolutionary movement religious principles could easily find conflict with each other.

In Alex’s post regarding The Meany Headed Hydra, he brings up a good point: “Mobs are desperate and do what they can to achieve their own ends. In my view, class trumps race or any other political category when administrating a revolt.” This idea could be used in the analyzation of the use of religion in revolutionary terms as well: do the ends justify the means? Could different denominations find common ground in order to achieve their goals, nullifying the negative effects of a diverse population? Although it is possible, religion has historically been such a divisive factor that I believe the grievances would have to be very severe for revolutionaries to overlook their religious beliefs in order to achieve a goal.

There are, of course, more factors affecting religion’s influence. The degree of religious devotion, history between different religions and denominations, and the degree of belief similarities would all have effects on the ability for two different religious parties to work together. This does not change the ability, however, for religious institutions to aid in the organization of revolutionary tactics.

October 2, 2013

It's all about Class

In The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, and the Atlantic Working Class in the Eighteenth Century by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, they argue that the nature of mobs and revolts in the eighteenth century altered and did not consist solely of homogeneous groups, but rather of many classes, races, and vocations all advocating for a single cause. They note the presence of several nationalities in mobs during the pre-Revolutionary phase in the American colonies and sets them up in opposition to “the symbols of Royal Majesty and civil authority and ruling-class power” portraying the irony in whites plotting against whites.

Linebaugh and Rediker claim that modern historians have neglected to tell the story of these multi-faceted mobs but it is important to address what united these diverse groups: class. Yes, it may be surprising to find black slaves and white sailors working in unison to protest the affluent ‘white peoples’ of New York, it is more clarifying to note how they both fall into lower socioeconomic classes and they fought against these ‘whites’, for the most part, because they were wealthy and race was an obvious complement. These groups felt quite disfranchised and violated by the same culprits, just in different ways. The black slaves protested their servitude and the harsh conditions under which they lived while the white sailors protested the impressment which was being practiced rampantly in the streets of the colonies by the British administrators. These trying circumstances necessitated the unification of these varying groups in order for them to achieve their goals but I don’t believe it was any kind of progressive effort to integrate racial groups. Mobs are desperate and do what they can to achieve their own ends. In my view, class trumps race or any other political category when administrating a revolt.

The Hydra is used as a classical metaphor to describe how the working class would subvert the power of the wealthy. It is interesting to see how the use of such classical texts served to “assist the scientific revolution through the revival of neo-Platonism” but also “supported the doctrine of European progress in social development.” The working class used its newfound power and newly receptive audience to such revolutionary principles to fuel its cause and gain supporters to the revolutionary cause. These philosophies engendered by the Renaissance were, of course, instrumental in fostering the revolutionary sentiments in the colonies where they saw the inherent injustices in taxing peoples unrepresented by government and a need for some semblance of democracy.

In last week’s post, Ian made reference to the justification of factions, saying, “generally, they are a good thing, as they represent the ideas of different groups of people, which all come together to vote on the country’s directive.” I agree with this assertion which essentially addresses the argument Linebaugh and Rediker are making that the rebellions in colonial America, endorsed by so many diverse groups, were beneficial in that they voiced many peoples’ concerns. This was the necessary beginning of American freedoms to express your opinions without fear of backlash, but also of having a government and society tolerant to many philosophies.

October 2, 2013

Ironic Hydra

I am excited to learn about more about ships and their role as political spaces since, in reading “The Many-Headed Hydra” by Linebaugh and Rediker, it became apparent to me that, in the cases they discussed, ships served dual roles: (1) to confine and control people, especially slaves and, (2) especially for the African community, to create a sense of cohesion among those who were enslaved and transported on ships. This cohesion served Africans in England well in their London community, according to Linebaugh and Rediker.
Not only cohesion but, as L&R argue, the confinement experienced by all of these groups, including Africans, led to consciousness of freedom, which was an essential element in inspiring the riots and activism of the working class in this period and later.

I found “The Many-Headed Hydra” to be a particularly interested reading. I appreciated the use of the hydra metaphor because, not only did I learn about its use in the past to describe the so-called ‘mob,’ but the authors’ sympathetic treatment of the working class within this piece adds irony to the metaphor.

I think that perspectives on race in “Hydra” is also a worthy topic. Considering the food riots of 1740 and the resistance to the ‘Intolerable Acts’ in colonial America leading up to the revolution, one must challenge the perception of racism and cultural bias as inherent and natural. As my favorite historian, the late Howard Zinn, suggested in his “People’s History of the United States,” perhaps it is possible that racism is a tool with which the wealthy divide the working classes into separate groups. Though perhaps difficult to prove such a hypothesis, the motives for such action are certainly present: nurturing racism solidifies the validity of race-based enslavement, creates hate between groups of people who might otherwise be unified, and distracts from other issues that might upset people.

L&R also document the cohesion with which workers from various industries and even social strata cohere in order to protest and act against what they see as oppression. In the protests before the revolutionary war, workers of both African and European ethnicity, as well as those who were enslaved and indentured and those who were free worked together to accomplish their goals. Similarly, during the 1768 riots in Ireland “tailors, shoemakers, carpenters” all banded together in activism for the advancement of the working class.

Regarding Slaughter and “The Whiskey Rebellion,” I both agree and disagree with Wade’s assessment. Though perhaps not the most inclusive conclusion, Slaughter’s argument that liberty versus order was the most significant paradigm of the Whiskey Rebellion was supported by some evidence. I think that Slaughter’s incredibly detailed description of the events allows and encourages the reader to make their own analysis, especially when considering the roots of the rebellion, leading all the way to independence movements in what is now Tennessee and Kentucky and Vermont.

October 2, 2013

It Was Bound to Happen

AJ’s claim that the Whiskey Rebellion could have been avoided if personal grudges had been put aside, is a nice thought (it also provides a great image of a 1980s television freeze frame where Washington and Hamilton jump in the air and high five a group of westerners to show their differences are settled as the credits roll) but in no way was going to happen. Rebellions were occurring across the globe at this point in history and the number of similarities between the Whiskey Rebellion and these foreign revolutions are numerous as pointed out by Linebaugh and Rediker’s work The Many-Headed Hydra. Using only a sampling of rebellions occurring across the globe one can see similarities when they compare them to the Whiskey Rebellion situation. Boiling these numerous revolts down to the simplest of terminology I feel that these revolts are “the poor against the wealthy in attempt to even the playing field.” Now poor and wealthy doesn’t necessarily mean money, as many of these poor were simply trying to gain influence, but often times the individuals revolting were in worse financial shape. Looking at the Whiskey Rebellion, anger over taxes that were to be imposed on those out west was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Prior to this tax those out west felt that the government truly did not care for their well being, was the government providing westerns guns to fight off the Native Americans? No. Was the government putting any effort into staring western settlements? No, the government was relying on those out west to settle the land, so that easterners later could step in and live similarly to how they did originally. Westerns were upset with their situation and finally hit a boiling point, much like others across the globe were.

Going back to AJ’s point could Hamilton and Washington have put aside their issues with the west and maybe given them what they desired, a voice? Yes. But why would they? These men just outlasted the largest empire in the world and prior to outlasting them were able to pick up some notable military victories. What were a few thousand farmers to an entire army? It is not the nicest view of Washington and Hamilton, who are undoubtedly among the legends of revolution time America, but it is a realistic view. Furthermore, who is to say that if Washington and Hamilton were to give into the desires of the west that the west wouldn’t want more. I think the idea of give them an inch they take a mile truly was at play here as those out west were trying to see where their voice stood amongst those out east. Sadly for them they found out they simply didn’t have a voice.

Ultimately this revolt was bound to happen due to simply a difference of views and opinions of how each participant of the Whiskey Rebellion saw themselves. Would the way that the rebellion have played out been any different if those out west made in an issue of being an American? Slaughter points out that many westerners were people of multiple races and didn’t fall under the traditional scope of “an American” at this time. Answering that question I’d say probably not. The only difference I can see in that scenario in the way that the rebellion would have played out were the possible repercussions of foreigners or free blacks living in the colonies.