Chants Democratic New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850

by Wilentz, Sean

• ISBN13: 9780195174502
• ISBN10: 019517450X
• Edition: 20th
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Since its publication in 1984, Chants Democratic has endured as a classic narrative on labor and the rise of American democracy. In it, Sean Wilentz explores the dramatic social and intellectual changes that accompanied early industrialization in New York. He provides a panoramic chronicle ofNew York City's labor strife, social movements, and political turmoil in the eras of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. Twenty years after its initial publication, Wilentz has added a new preface that takes stock of his own thinking, then and now, about New York City and the rise of the Americanworking class.

Author Biography

Sean Wilentz is Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and Director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Stollenwerck's Panorama, 1815,	3	(20)
I The Artisan Republic, 1788-1825
1. "By Hammer and Hand": Artisans in the Mercantile City,	23	(38)
The Crafts in Flux,	24	(11)
Entrepreneurs,	35	(7)
Small Masters,	42	(6)
Journeymen,	48	(12)
A Restive Peace,	60	(1)
2. Artisan Republicanism,	61	(46)
Redeeming the Revolution,	63	(14)
Republican Religion,	77	(10)
"Articels Emblemattical of Our Trade,"	87	(10)
Republicanism and Conflict,	97	(4)
Artisan Republicanism and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism,	101	(6)
II The Bastard Workshop, 1825-1850
3. Metropolitan Industrialization,	107	(38)
Metropolitan Manufacturing and the Bastardization of Craft,	108	(11)
The Sweated Trades: Clothing, Shoes, and Furniture,	119	(10)
Technology and the Division of Labor: Printing,	129	(3)
Subcontracting and the Building Trades,	132	(2)
The Persistence of Tradition: Shipbuilding and Food Preparation,	134	(6)
Craft Workers in the Industrializing Metropolis,	140	(5)
III Working Man's Advocates, 1825-1832
4. Entrepreneurs and Radicals,	145	(27)
Entrepreneurial Crusades: Moral Reform and Political Economy,	145	(8)
Impious Artisans and the Uses of Morality,	153	(4)
Property, Producers' Rights, and the Assault on Competition,	157	(11)
The Outcasts Organize,	168	(3)
Background to Crisis,	171	(1)
5. The Rise and Fall of the Working Men,	172	(47)
Republicanism, Party Democracy, and Politics,	172	(4)
Dramatis Personae,	176	(14)
The Radical Movement,	190	(11)
The Coup,	201	(7)
The End,	208	(3)
Artisan Radicalism and the Paradoxes of Politics,	211	(8)
IV The Journeymen's Revolt, 1833-1836
6. "A Phalanx of Honest Worth": The General Trades' Union of the City of New York,	219	(36)
Union Men,	220	(7)
Union Democracy,	227	(3)
Strikes and Politics,	230	(7)
Class Consciousness and the Republic of Labor,	237	(11)
The Boundaries of Class,	248	(6)
Radicalism and the Union,	254	(1)
7. Oppositions: To the Crisis of 1836,	255	(44)
The Republic of the Bowery,	257	(14)
The Masters: Toward an Ideology of Free Labor,	271	(15)
The Crisis of 1836,	286	(8)
The Legacy of Union,	294	(5)
V Hard Times and Politics, 1837-1849
8. Panic and Prejudice,	299	(27)
Free Labor and the Republic of Capital,	302	(5)
The Jovial Hurrah: Washingtonian Temperance,	307	(8)
American Republicanism: Nativism, Mutuality, and Liberty,	315	(9)
Reformation,	324	(2)
9. Subterranean Radicals,	326
Mike Walsh and the Shirtless Democracy,	326	(9)
Land Reform,	335	(8)
Plebeian Protestants: The American Laboring Confederacy and the Mechanics' Mutual,	343	(6)
Trade Societies, Immigrants, and Labor Radicalism,	349	(7)
Radicalism and Self-Respect,	356	(7)
VI Class Conflict in the American Metropolis
10. The Labor Crisis of 1950,	363	(28)
Movements and Men,	364	(8)
To City Hall,	372	(5)
The Tailors' Strike,	377	(6)
Party Politics, Dissolution, and the Aftermath,	383	(3)
Conclusion: "The Most Radical City in America,"	386	(5)
Epilogue: Hudson Street, 1865,	391	(6)
Appendix: Tables and Figures,	397	(26)
Bibliographical Essay,	423	(10)
Index,	433