Social History

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  Chesapeake Gold: Man and Oyster on the Bay

  The figure of an old man poling a skiff toward shore against the evening light engaged Susan Brait to learn about Chesapeake Bay, and it is that image which opens this her book on the oystermen of the Bay and the sapping of their traditional life, and even the bounty of the Bay itself, by the demands of American society.

  With directness and poetic economy Brait takes the reader into the life of the Bay and into the complex relationships that affect oysters and those who make their living from them. Her account weaves easily from the daily work of ...Read More

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  The Organic City: Urban Definition and Neighborhood Organization 1880–1920

  During the late nineteenth century, rapid social and economic changes negated the prevailing conception of the city as a uniform whole. Confronted with this disparity between the old urban definition and the new city of the late nineteenth century, social thinkers searched for a new concept that would correspond more closely to the divided urban community around them. Borrowing an analogy from natural history, these thinkers conceived of the city as an organism composed of interdependent neighborhoods and sought to translate this concept into ways of dealing with the dislocations and problems in urban life.

  In this new study of ...Read More

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  Reform in America: The Continuing Frontier

  "In discussing slavery and woman's rights, social security and the graduated income tax," writes Robert Walker, "the reformers have defined and redefined America." Recognizing in the history of reform a prime source for the discovery of cultural priorities, Walker seeks in Reform in America to organize the reform experience in a new way, so that its collective patterns can be seen.

  Reform in America identifies three principal streams of reform advocacy in American history. Politico-economic issues, the mainstream of reform, are exemplified by a detailed study of the politics of money from 1832 to 1913. Reform on behalf of special ...Read More

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  The People's Voice: The Orator in American Society

  In this flavorful and perceptive study of the American orator, Barnet Baskerville makes an inquiry into American attitudes toward orators and oratory and the reflection of these attitudes in speaking practices. He examines the role of the orator in society and the kinds or qualities of oratory that were dominant in each period of American history, and he looks into the nature and importance of oratory as perceived by audiences and by speakers themselves. By examining this “public image” of the orator, the author is able to tell us much about the people who drew that image.

  Barnet Baskerville is ...Read More

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  Elites and Change in the Kentucky Mountains

  Many Americans who trace their roots to communities similar to those of Appalachian Kentucky are becoming aware of the extent to which the problems of such communities represent the price paid for keeping alive traditions that are beginning to be missed in the wider society. Using fresh data and ingenious ways of letting local people speak for themselves, Mary Jean Bowman and H. Dudley Plunkett have thrown light on how isolated, small-town people respond to the encroachment of modern America, with its organized economy, mass communications media, reliance on more and more schooling, and persistent drive for social change.

  The ...Read More

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  Travels Between the Hudson and the Mississippi: 1851–1852

  Moritz Busch, a German journalist, theologian, and participant in the Revolution of 1848, proved himself both an accurate observer and a sensitive interpreter of American life in the mid-nineteenth century. His charming and richly detailed account has been translated into English for the first time. Not only an outstanding travel account, it proves to be a lode of background material that will be valued by the general reader, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and other scholars.

  Busch was keenly interested in the working of American institutions—government, religion, economy, and social customs—and his descriptions rank with the best contemporary accounts. His concern ...Read More