Bowing to Necessities A History of Manners in America, 1620-1860

by Hemphill, C. Dallett

• ISBN13: 9780195154085
• ISBN10: 0195154088
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Anglo-Americans wrestled with some profound cultural contradictions as they shifted from the hierarchical and patriarchal society of the seventeenth-century frontier to the modern and fluid class democracy of the mid-nineteenth century. How could traditional inequality be maintained in the socially leveling environment of the early colonial wilderness? And how could nineteenth-century Americans pretend to be equal in an increasingly unequal society? Bowing to Necessities argues that manners provided ritual solutions to these central cultural problems by allowing Americans to act out--and thus reinforce--power relations just as these relations underwent challenges. Analyzing the many sermons, child-rearing guides, advice books, and etiquette manuals that taught Americans how to behave, this book connects these instructions to individual practices and personal concerns found in contemporary diaries and letters. It also illuminates crucial connections between evolving class, age, and gender relations. A social and cultural history with a unique and fascinating perspective, Hemphill's wide-ranging study offers readers a panorama of America's social customs from colonial times to the Civil War.

Author Biography

C. Dallett Hemphill is Professor of History at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(10)
PART I Hierarchy: Manners in a Vertical Social Order, 1620-1740
Manners for Gentlemen	13	(18)
Manners over Minors	31	(15)
Manners Maketh Men	46	(19)
PART II Revolution: An Opening of Possibilities, 1740-1820
Middle Class Rising	65	(22)
Youth Rising	87	(17)
Women Rising	104	(25)
PART III Resolution: Manners for Democrats, 1820-1860
Manners for the Middle Class	129	(31)
Manners for Adults	160	(19)
Ladies First?	179	(34)
Conclusion	213	(12)
Appendix: Conduct Advice Works: Author/Audience Statistics	225	(2)
Notes	227	(64)
Bibliography of Conduct Works Cited	291	(10)
Index	301