On the Make : : Clerks and the Quest for Capital in Nineteenth-Century America / / Brian P. Luskey.
In the bustling cities of the mid-nineteenth-century Northeast, young male clerks working in commercial offices and stores were on the make, persistently seeking wealth, respect, and self-gratification. Yet these strivers and "counter jumpers" discovered that claiming the identities of ind...
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Superior document: | Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013 |
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VerfasserIn: | |
Place / Publishing House: | New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2010] ©2010 |
Year of Publication: | 2010 |
Language: | English |
Series: | American History and Culture ;
1 |
Online Access: | |
Physical Description: | 1 online resource |
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Other title: | Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 What Is My Prospects? -- 2 The Humble Laborer in the White Collar -- 3 Homo Counter-Jumperii -- 4 Striving for Citizenship -- 5 The Republic of Broadcloth -- 6 The Swedish Nightingale and the Peeping Tom -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author |
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Summary: | In the bustling cities of the mid-nineteenth-century Northeast, young male clerks working in commercial offices and stores were on the make, persistently seeking wealth, respect, and self-gratification. Yet these strivers and "counter jumpers" discovered that claiming the identities of independent men-while making sense of a volatile capitalist economy and fluid urban society-was fraught with uncertainty. In On the Make, Brian P. Luskey illuminates at once the power of the ideology of self-making and the important contests over the meanings of respectability, manhood, and citizenship that helped to determine who clerks were and who they would become. Drawing from a rich array of archival materials, including clerks’ diaries, newspapers, credit reports, census data, advice literature, and fiction, Luskey argues that a better understanding of clerks and clerking helps make sense of the culture of capitalism and the society it shaped in this pivotal era. |
Format: | Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. |
ISBN: | 9780814753484 9783110706444 |
DOI: | 10.18574/nyu/9780814752289.001.0001 |
Access: | restricted access |
Hierarchical level: | Monograph |
Statement of Responsibility: | Brian P. Luskey. |