1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819034903321

Autore

Townsend Camilla <1965->

Titolo

Tales of two cities : race and economic culture in early republican North and South America : Guayaquil, Ecuador, and Baltimore, Maryland / / Camilla Townsend

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Austin, : University of Texas Press, 2000

ISBN

0-292-79881-4

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (345 p.)

Disciplina

305.5/09752/6

Soggetti

Social classes - Ecuador - Guayaquil - History - 19th century

Social classes - Maryland - Baltimore - History - 19th century

Baltimore (Md.) Economic conditions 19th century

Guayaquil (Ecuador) Economic conditions 19th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Maps and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue: First Impressions -- Introduction -- Part I -- 1. In the Streets of the Cities -- 2. Conquest and Colony -- Part II -- 3. A Merry Party and Serious Business -- 4. Strawberry Parties and Habits of Industry -- Part III -- 5. The Quest of the ‘‘Personas Decentes’’ -- 6. The Quest of the Contributing Citizens -- Part IV -- 7. Working on Dead Man’s Rock -- 8. ‘‘To Become the Unfortunate Tenants of Your Alms House’’ -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

With a common heritage as former colonies of Europe, why did the United States so outstrip Latin America in terms of economic development in the nineteenth century? In this innovative study, Camilla Townsend challenges the traditional view that North Americans succeeded because of better attitudes toward work—the Protestant work ethic—and argues instead that they prospered because of differences in attitudes towards workers that evolved in the colonial era. Townsend builds her study around workers' lives in two very similar port cities in the 1820s and 1830s. Through the eyes of the young Frederick Douglass in Baltimore, Maryland, and an Indian woman



named Ana Yagual in Guayaquil, Ecuador, she shows how differing attitudes towards race and class in North and South America affected local ways of doing business. This empirical research significantly clarifies the relationship between economic culture and racial identity and its long-term effects.