Workers in the Metropolis : Class, Ethnicity, and Youth in Antebellum New York City / Richard B. Stott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stott, Richard B., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Childhood Studies.

Labor History.

New York (N.Y.).

Local Subjects:

Childhood Studies.

Labor History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The working class in New York City was remade in the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1820s a substantial majority of city artisans were native-born; by the 1850s three-quarters of the city's laboring men and women were immigrants. How did the influx of this large group of young adults affect the city's working class? What determined the texture of working-class life during the antebellum period? Richard Stott addresses these questions as he explores the social and economic dimensions of working-class culture.Working-class culture, Stott maintains, is grounded in the material environment, and when work, population, consumption, and the uses of urban space change as rapidly as they did in the mid-nineteenth century, culture will be transformed. Using workers' first-person accounts-letters, diaries, and reminiscences-as evidence, and focusing on such diverse topics as neighborhoods, diet, saloons, and dialect, he traces the rise of a new, youth-oriented working-class culture. By illuminating the everyday experiences of city workers, he shows that the culture emerging in the 1850s was a culture clearly different from that of native-born artisans of an earlier period and from that of the middle class as well.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Tables

Figures and Maps

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Metropolis and Working-Class History

1. The City

2. A Short History of the Trades of New York

3. The People

4. The Labor Market and the Family Economy

5. The Workplace

6. Consumption

7. Working-Class Neighborhoods

8. Working-Class Institutions

9. Culture

Appendixes

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Nov 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

ISBN:

9781501743627

1501743627

OCLC:

1129184119