1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781151903321

Autore

Fairfield John D. <1955->

Titolo

The public and its possibilities [[electronic resource] ] : triumphs and tragedies in the American City / / John D. Fairfield

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : Temple University Press, 2010

ISBN

1-280-12809-7

9786613531971

1-4399-0212-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (369 p.)

Collana

Urban life, landscape, and policy

Disciplina

307.760973

Soggetti

City and town life - United States - History

Community life - United States - History

Civic improvement - United States - History

Popular culture - United States - History

Political culture - United States - History

Political participation - United States - History

United States Social conditions

United States Intellectual life

United States Politics and government

United States Social policy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Preface: The Public and Its Possibilities -- Introduction: Liberalism and the Civic Strand in the American Past -- Civic Aspirations and Liberal Values -- An Urban Thesis -- Civic Aspirations and Market Development in a Long Age of Revolution -- Democratizing the Republican Ideal of Citizenship: Virtue, Interests, and the Citizen-Proprietor in the Revolutionary Era -- Creating Citizens in a Commercial Republic: Market Transformation and the Free Labor Ideal, 1812-1873 -- The Short, Strange Career of Laissez-Faire: Liberal Reformers and Genteel Culture in the Gilded Age -- Popular Culture, Political Culture: Building a Democratic Public -- The Democratic Public in City and Nation: The Jacksonian City and the Limits of Antislavery --



The Democratic Public Discredited: The New York City Draft Riots and Urban Reconstruction, 1850-1872 -- Cultural Hierarchy and Good Government: The Democratic Public in Eclipse -- The Public in Progressivism and War -- The Republican Movement: The Rediscovery of the Public in the Progressive Era -- The Public Goes to War but Does Not Come Back -- A Democracy of Consumers -- From Economic Democracy to Social Security: The Labor Movement and the Rise of the Welfare/Warfare State -- Constructing a Consumer Culture: Redirecting Leisure from Civic Engagement to Insatiable Desire -- Private Vision, Public Resources: Mass Suburbanization and the Decline of the City -- Conclusion: The Future of the City: Civic Renewal and Environmental Politics

Sommario/riassunto

In his compelling reinterpretation of American history, The Public and Its Possibilities, John Fairfield argues that our unrealized civic aspirations provide the essential counterpoint to an excessive focus on private interests. Inspired by the revolutionary generation, nineteenth-century Americans struggled to build an economy and a culture to complement their republican institutions. But over the course of the twentieth century, a corporate economy and consumer culture undercut civic values, conflating consumer and citizen.  Fairfield places the city at th