Public markets and civic culture in nineteenth-century America / Helen Tangires.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tangires, Helen, 1956-

Series:

Creating the North American landscape

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Markets--United States--History--19th century.

Markets.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

xx, 265 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Summary:

Helen Tangires examines the role of the public marketplace - social and architectural - as a key site in the development of civic culture in America. More than simply places for buying and selling food, Tangires explains, municipally owned and operated markets were the common ground where citizens and government struggled to define the shared values of the community. Public markets were vital to civic policy and reflected the profound belief in the moral economy - the effort on the part of the municipality to maintain the social and political health of its community by regulating the ethics of trade in the urban marketplace for food.

Contents:

Part I Building the Common Ground

1 Market Laws in the Early Republic 3

2 The Market House 26

3 Marketplace Culture 48

Part II Cracks in the Market Walls

4 The Legalizing of Private Meat Shops in Antebellum New York 71

5 Market House Company Mania in Philadelphia 95

6 The Landscape of Deregulation 118

Part III Regaining a Share of the Marketplace

7 Consumer Protection and the New Moral Economy 151

8 Rebirth of the Municipal Market 173.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-255) and index.

ISBN:

0801871336

OCLC:

49576243