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On the Make

Clerks and the Quest for Capital in Nineteenth-Century America
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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 men-while making sense of a volatile capitalist economy and fluid urban society-was 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.
Acknowledgments Introduction: Puzzled about Identity 1 What Is My Prospects? 2 The Humble Laborer in the White Collar 3 Homo Counter-Jumperii 4 Striving for Citizenship 5 The Republic of Broadcloth 6 The Swedish Nightingale and the Peeping Tom Conclusion: Once More, Free Notes Index About the Author
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