Joseph V. Palesano Professor Zarate History 7A # 6857 March 31, 2014 The Silent Separation A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, Authored by, Paul E Johnson in 1978, conveys the idea of the changing routes in trade, due to the efficiency of Eerie Canal, and the splitting political efforts from "The Elites", farmers turned business entrepreneurs, attempting to control the reformation movements until the religious revivals of Charles Finney, introduced a patriarchy style leadership to control the social and moral lives of the people in the city of Rochester. The author presents his narrative as more of a case study of the social, political, economic and religious development of the Middle Class Society in New York, evident by the brilliant use of information gathered from church records, economic registers, and political documents. There is a very interesting aspect that can be extracted from the narrative, specifically the separation of church and state. Were the “Elites” of Rochester of 1830, in violation of the first amendment of the US Constitution that became effective in 1789? In 1820, the city of Rochester began to “BOOM”, landowners and farmers, began to flourish in the business of export. Now supplying major cities with food and textiles utilizing the most efficient trade route of the Eerie Canal to the best of their advantage, lowered their operating expenses and increased their profits, which they invested in building Mills that were powered by the waterfalls of the Eerie Canal. Another low overhead endeavor, as the mills required less personnel to maintain its output changing again reducing traditional overhead costs and increasing profits. The pre-industrial society of Rochester, now entering the textile prod... ... middle of paper ... ... the good of the people. The “Whig party” is now known as the “Republican Party.” The author explains that the revival enabled the social control that assisted in this transition. Not to be confused with Marxism, it was not a capitalist plot, but a way to legitimize free labor. Finney shows up as government fails to assert control. He then creates the evangelical army led by the Masters and filtered down to the workers, by presenting a free moral agent philosophy within the community. The correct interpretation the separation of church and state, in the US Constitution, is that it does not forbid contact between church and state, it protects the religious liberty for the entire country. Works Cited Johnson, Paul E. A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. Print.
Paul E. Johnson’s classic, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837, describes the city of Rochester, New York on the cusp of Charles Finney’s revival. Johnson sets out to “trace the social origins of revival religion”, by considering all levels of the Rochester society, including economy, domestic life and politics, the audience sees how the city functions in the face of modernization and social change (12). Toward the end of his text, Johnson depicts the revival itself and all the change it brought to Rochester. One particular consequence, as Johnson states, is the establishment of Evangelicalism in American societal structure and the eventual development of the Whig party. Johnson concludes his book having proven that there is a strong “relationship between religion and political behavior” (135). Through the Evangelical influence the Whig party developed, calling for temperance, observance of the Sabbath and overall moral reform. However, those untouched by revival began to stand at odds to such moral control. Soon differing ideologies evolved, those of the Protestants and workmen, eventually culminating into two distinct parties: the Whig and Democratic parties. This paper will look at examples from Rochester to suggest the foundations for the divisions between the parties: how they view moral concerns and their ways of governing these issues, finally, asserting that such divisions still affect American politics today.
As soon as the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, eastern investors quickly realized Chicago's huge potential. The land around what would one ...
In his book A Shopkeepers Millenium, Paul E. Johnson tells of a settlement in early 1800s Western New York called Rochester, an inland, water-powered town which thrived by dint of mercantilism, trade, and supplying manufacturing goods for nearby towns and travelers passing through. Rochester’s mills made it famous, and commerce thrived in Rochester because it had goods that were in high demand. Rochester’s settlers were wealthy men, and maintained this by carefully courting wealthy women or having their family members marry into wealth. In the late 1820’s, Rochester succumbed to public drunkenness, debauchery, and an uncontrolled lower class. Johnson argues that the evangelical revival during the winter of 1931 was a reaction to dissolution
They appeal to pathos by appealing to two things that many Americans may hold dear, their faith and their right to unionize. Verba goes on to explain how involvement in churches and unions are an ideal start in making the step to political involvement because they develop communication and organizational skills that could transfer over to politics. The authors argue that because churches and unions function quite similarly in developing future political involvement, the strength of religious organizations would counter the weakness of labor unions. They reach this conclusion because at the time, labor unions represented a lower amount of workers and in order to drive home that point, they provide us with this example, “a blue-collar worker is more likely to practice civic skills in church than in a union—not because American unions are particularly deficient as skill builders, but because so few American blue-collar workers are union members and so many are church
During the nineteenth century, America went through a number of social, economic and political changes. Revolutions in manufacturing and commerce led to substantial economic growth. Several cultural movements reformed American society. Mary Paul, once just a normal girl from Vermont, led a life that was shaped by the changes of the 1800's. The information gathered from Mary Paul's letters to her father make it clear that Mary's life experiences turned her into anything but an average woman. However, in the scope of the economic and cultural reforms of the nineteenth century, Mary Paul represents the average American.
The Whig Party “coalesced into Jackson opposition party” in 1832 (Democratic… 15). The name “Whigs” is derived from British designation for “anti-monarchists.” The Wigs, among whom were also John Q. Adams, Lyman Beecher, Horace Greely, or Abraham Lincoln, made fun of Andrew Jackson, calling him “King Andrew” (Democratic… 15). They were against slavery and alcohol consumption, supported internal improvements and claimed the education needs to be improved. The Whig Party didn’t last long; many of the members joined the Republican Party later.
Roark, James L. et al., eds. The American Promise: A Compact, Vol. I: To 1877. 3rd edition. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
At its core, the Second Great Awakening was a religious response to the uncertainty of the period. The nation at the time was redrawing its boundaries westward to accommodate the booming population. The established Protestant denominations of the day, the Congregationalists and Anglicans, had failed to create their much desired religious utopias and discontent in their traditional beliefs set in. Through the means of renewed religious enthusiasm, a movement spread throughout the young nation seeking to reverse the spiritual apathy that had set in many of its Christian adherents. With the growing diversity of American settlers on the frontier and within the states, the charismatic leaders of the Second Great Awakening reached out to the common man.
In his book, “Amusing The Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century,” Kasson explains that in antebellum America middle-class Protestants of the urban northeast, who were mostly “self-conscious elite of critics, ministers, educators, and reformers” (p. 4), governed by a “strikingly coherent set of values” comparable,
Stansell, Christine. “Women on the Town: Sexual Exchange and Prostitution,” in City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 (Illinois, 1987), 171-192. [ACLS Humanities E-Book, via Coast]
The adventurous but interesting story of how the United States of America became a global power in the world economy can be traced to the ingenuity of a small group of men, who defied all odds to construct a link between the Atlantic Ocean and the great Lakes - the “Erie Canal”, constructed in the eighteenth century America, was a 363 miles artificial waterway that connected the eastern seaboard with New York through Albany. In the book “the Wedding of the Waters” Peter Bernstein clinically depicts the story of how the Erie Canal shaped the economy of America, strengthened the Industrial Revolution, and actuated globalization. Not only was the project a large scale engineering that was completely man-made, it was also unique in that there was
Government has filled a spot in the American Society that once belonged to the churches. People regularly attended church throughout American history and use the church as a place of instruction, guidance, support, and charity. The government now fills a larger role in American’s lives and at the same time church attendance is diminishing. The government is growing at a rapid pace and the expanded social programs have more influence on Americans than the church. America is a nation of immigrants which most fled from large governments (sometime oppressive) and now the American government is poised to grow larger than ever. The ideas behind the growth of government can have noble intentions, but more often than not results in wasted money and harm to the peoples it intends to help, and is replacing the roles churches once filled as a guiding and supportive structure in peoples lives.
By balancing his argument and depicting reasons why the flood was both a “work of man” and a “visitation of providence”, he illuminates not only the issues surrounding the Johnstown Flood, but on a broader scale he makes a powerful statement on the 19th century class structures that dominated ‘The Gilded Age’ of Victorian America. Throughout the book, I found the defining and most fundamental quote to be that of a New England newspaper that concluded, “The lesson of the Conemaugh Valley flood is that the catastrophes of Nature have to be regarded in the structures of man as well as its ordinary laws.” This is a great example of the abyss. Bibliography David McCullough, The Johnstown Flood, (Simon & Schuster: NY 1968).
“Chapter 19: Towards an Urban Society, 1877-1900.” America: Past and Present. Ed. Michael Boezi. 8th edition. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. 538-570
...rian society of the mid-1800s changed with the rise of a modern city culture. Simple life styles became more complicated and cultured as the economy focused on a continual increase in production and an ever-widening distribution of manufactured goods. Family life, social and political culture, agriculture and industry were dramatically transformed, guiding in a new era of change. This relates to chapter 17 in the textbook, “Reconstruction.” During reconstruction, the South was brought back into the union but Republican hopes of having the South follow northern lines of development were never realized. Race relations and the comeback of conservative Democrats extremely limited African-American opportunities. The northern industrial continued by economic advances were less by corruption and the depression of 1873. The Compromise of 1877 ended the Reconstruction era.