The middle-class city : transforming space and time in Philadelphia, 1876-1926 John Henry Hepp IV

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hepp, John Henry.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Middle class--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Middle class.

Cities and towns--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--Growth.

Cities and towns.

City planning--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

City planning.

Department stores--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Department stores.

Transportation--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Transportation.

Newspaper reading--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Newspaper reading.

Philadelphia (Pa.)--History.

Philadelphia (Pa.).

Philadelphia (Pa.)--Social life and customs.

Physical Description:

ix, 278 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2003.

Summary:

"The classical historical interpretation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America sees this period as a political search for order by the middle class, culminating in Progressive Era reforms. In The Middle Class City, John Hepp, examines transformations in everyday middle-class life in Philadelphia between 1876 and 1926 to discover the cultural roots of his search for order. By looking at complex relationships among members of that city's middle class and three largely bourgeois commercial institutions - newspapers, department stores, and railroads - Hepp finds that the men and women of the middle class consistently reordered their world along rational lines."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents:

A revised and enlarged Philadelphia

I: Late nineteenth-century Philadelphia

Prelude: I went out to the centennial

1. The most traversed city by railways in this country, if not the world

2. Such a well-behaved train station

3. A pretty friendly sort of place

4. A sober paper

Interlude: Went to willow grove

II: Early twentieth-century Philadelphia

The new century: the magnificent metropolis of today

5. If dad could not get...the Evening Bulletin it was practically the end of the world

6. We never realized that department stores had an upstairs

7. One great big stretch of middle class

Postlude: Albion and I went to the Sesqui

The trouble with history.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-273) and index.

ISBN:

0812237234 (acid-free paper)

9780812237238 (acid-free paper)

OCLC:

51559207

Online:

Book review (H-Net)