On the Make

by Luskey, Brian P.

• ISBN13: 9780814752289
• ISBN10: 0814752284
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

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 menwhile making sense of a volatile capitalist economy and fluid urban societywas 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: Puzzled about Identity	p. 1
What Is My Prospects?	p. 21
The Humble Laborer in the White Collar	p. 54
Homo Counter-Jumperii	p. 83
Striving for Citizenship	p. 119
The Republic of Broadcloth	p. 148
The Swedish Nightingale and the Peeping Tom	p. 177
Conclusion: Once More, Free	p. 207
Notes	p. 237
Index	p. 273
About the Author	p. 278
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