Johnson – Popular Politics in Early America

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, 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.

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.

Tag: Johnson

Rochester: American Microcosm