The Making of New York City's Bourgeoisie,
1850-1886
Sven Beckert 1
Harvard University
Among the most deeplyengrainedpopularimagesof the nineteenth
centuryUnitedStatesarethoseof thenation'swealthy.As villainsor heroes,the
Carnegiesand Lows, Gouldsand Mellons have found a solid place in the
nationalcollectivememory.We knowaboutthe mansions
of the Vanderbiltson
Fifth Avenue, August Belmont's sumptuousdinners at Delmonico's, and
J.P.Morgan'sunsuccessful
jockeyingfor a box at the Academyof Music. Ever
sinceEdith Whartonwe can picturetheir complicatedweb of friendshipand
kinshipties. And if we walk aroundNew York City today,we cannothelp but
encounterthe greatmonuments
the nineteenth-century
bourgeoisie
left behind,
from the MetropolitanOpera to Central Park, from Cooper Union to the
MetropolitanMuseumof Art.
The nineteenthcentury,as theseobservations
suggest,was indeedthe
centuryof the bourgeoisie's
makingandof the makingof the bourgeoisie.
From
the factoryfloor to the Operahouse,from City Hall to Congress,merchants,
industrialists,
andbankerswroughttremendous
changeson the economy,social
life, andpoliticsof the nation.Not only the VanderbiltsandMorgans,but also
New Yorkers suchas John Roach,William Dodge, AlexanderMasterson,and
PeterCooperfundamentally
transformed
the way Americanslived and worked,
and in the processturned the United Statesfrom an outpostof the Atlantic
economyinto one of the powerhouses
of the worldeconomy.They shapedthe
institutions
of a rapidlyexpanding
state,andtheirverysuccess
helpedgenerate
a
degreeof socialinequalityandsocialconflictthathad beenunknownto earlier
generations
of Americans.
While the bourgeoisie
in somesense"made"the nineteenth
century,the
nineteenthcentury also "made" the bourgeoisie.During the century's first
decades,merchantsand bankers,joined by a growingnumberof industrialists
andprofessionals,
controlled
mostof theyoungnation'scapital.Yet, evenaslate
as the 1850sthesegroupswereculturallyandideologicallyquiteremovedfrom
oneanother.Eachof themespoused
distinctandoftenantitheticalformsof the
universalist
beliefin a societywithoutfundamental
socialconflicts.Ultimately,
however,thetwo mostprominenteffectsof theirrise- proletarianization
andthe
IThisdissertation
waswritten
atColumbia
University
under
thesupervision
ofEricFoner.
BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC HISTORY, Volume twenty-five,no. 1, Fall 1996.
Copyright¸1996 by theBusiness
HistoryConference.
ISSN 0849-6825.
The Making of New York City's Bourgeoisie
/9
overthrowof slaveryduringthe Civil War - resultedin socialcohesionamong
different segmentsof the bourgeoisieand the embraceof a separateclass
identity.
My dissertation,
TheMakingof New YorkCity'sBourgeoisie,
1850-1886,
exploresthe centralrole of New York's bourgeoisiein the makingof modern
America.To do so,I focuson theintersection
of two largequestions:
First,I ask
when,how, andwhy bourgeoisNew Yorkersarticulatedsharedidentitiesduring
the nineteenthcentury.Second,I examinehow the relationshipof merchants,
industrialists,and bankersto the state changedand in particularhow the
bourgeoisie
eventuallyshapedstateinstitutions.
To answerthesebroadquestions,
I look at the economicstructure,social
life, beliefs,andpoliticsof bourgeois
New Yorkersbetween1850 and 1886.It
was duringtheseyearsthat the city's bourgeoisie
changeddramatically,facilitated by the catalyticeventsof the Civil War. To understandthesechangesI
look at merchantfamiliesin theirparlors,flag wavingbankersaddressing
public
assemblies,
andindustrialists
confrontingworkersin front of their factorygates.
I am writingon issuessuchas the socialgeography
of New York City, on the
changingconnection
of the city's wealthywith the South,on dress,travel,and
manners,on the alternatingrelationshipbetweenmerchantsand industrialists,
and on politics.I situatetheseactorsin the analysisof large processes
- war
making,stateexpansion
andproletarianization.
And I tie theresultingnarrative
togetherby thebroadquestions
outlinedearlier.
Let me summarizemy argumentandthenadda few generalobservations.
Above all, I maintain that New York's merchants,industrialists, and bankers
formed a socially cohesiveand self-conscious
classin the 1870s and 1880s.
This, I claim, was a decisivedeparturefrom earlierdecades.In the 1850s,the
city's bourgeoisie
had beensocially,ideologically,and politicallyfragmented,
and had articulated various universalist beliefs in free labor, the absence of
fundamentalsocialconflicts,the needfor hierarchyto maintainsocialorder, and
thedutyof stewardship
andresponsibility
for thecommunity.The Civil War and
the working-classmobilizationsof the 1860s and 1870s, however,moved the
city's merchants,industrialists
and bankersto greaterunity and an articulated
consciousness
of separateclass identity. Bourgeoissocial life and politics
increasingly
manifesteda new and greaterdistancefrom othersocialgroupsespeciallyfrom workerswhomtheyperceivedas a doublethreatto their political
and economicpower. This processacceleratedduring the depressionof the
1870s.As a result,manybourgeois
New Yorkersabandoned
earlieruniversalist
beliefsandtheirreluctantwartimesupportfor a state-sponsored
socialrevolution
in the South,articulatinginsteada new liberalismthat advocateda limit to the
politicalregulationof marketswhile demanding
an expansion
of the role of the
statein protectingthe ownersof property.This socialandideologicalcohesion,
combinedwith an entirelynew scaleof economicpower,translatedinto ever
growinginfluenceoverthestate.By the 1880s,bourgeois
New Yorkersstoodat
theheartof thenation'seconomic,cultural,andpoliticallife.
Sven Beckert / 10
This hasto sufficehere as a shortsummaryof the major findingsof my
work. Let me concludewith somegeneralconsiderations
that have framedmy
study.First,theimpetusfor thisstudyderivedfrommy sensethatthehistoryof
the bourgeoisie
hasbeenlargelyneglectedby historiansduringthe last twenty
years.Two very differenthistoriographical
traditionshave contributedto this
omission. While in the late 1940s and 1950s, historians such as Louis Hartz and
RichardHofstadterrecognizedthat the United Stateswas by the nineteenth
centurythe most bourgeoiscountryin the world, they arguedthat without a
historyof feudalisma distinctsocialgroupthatcouldbe termed"bourgeoisie"
couldnot arise[10, pp. 7, 51-52]. More recentworksby socialhistorianshave
conclusivelyshownthat this view of nineteenthcenturyAmericaas a middle
classcountrywithoutfundamental
socialconflictscannotbe sustained
in theface
of how the Civil War and the emergenceof a workingclasstore at the very
fabricof Americanlife. Yet theserevisionists
producedan imageof the United
Statesthatis alsoquiteincomplete.
While emphasizing
conflict,theemergence
of separateworkingclasscultures,andwidespread
resistance
to marketrelations,
theydid not explainconvincinglywhy the UnitedStatesturnedout to be suchan
unusuallyhospitableterrainfor the ownersof capital.The sophisticated
new
research
methodstheyemployed- fromcollectivebiographies
to thereconstructionof socialgeographies
- deepened
ourknowledgeof workersandothersocial
groups,
yetthemostbasicquestions
aboutthebourgeoisie
wentunexplored?
As
a result,historians
of the UnitedStateshavemisseda greatopportunity
- the
opportunity
to link theconceptual
andmethodological
insightsof socialhistory
to the largesyntheticquestions
aboutthe natureof nineteenth
centuryAmerica
anditsbourgeoisie
thatHartzandHofstadter,
amongothers,
hadformulated.
3
This contrasts
strikinglywiththe workof historians
of nineteenth
century
Europe,from CatherineHall to David Blackbourn,from JfirgenKocka to
AdelineDaumard,whohavedemonstrated
thatsuchan endeavor
is possible.
4
They haveshownthat to understand
the nineteenthcenturywe needto understandthe bourgeoisie,and to understand
the bourgeoisiewe need to put
emphasison classrelations,identityformation,the totalityof differentsocial
spheres,andthefamily aswell aspoliticsandpower.
This bringsme to my secondpoint.In contrastto muchhistoricalwriting
that has soughtto isolateone or the other aspect,my work aims at looking
simultaneously
at all spheresof sociallife - changingeconomicstructures,
the
changingform of bourgeoissociallife, the emergence
of new beliefs,and the
2Among
thefewworks
which
address
these
issues
seeparticularly
[1,8, 11,16,17,19].
3Social
historians
havesuccessfully
doneso,especially
in theiranalysis
of nineteenth
centurylabor.For example,see[7, 14, 20]. For a goodexampleof socialhistorythat is
attentiveto thebourgeoisiesee[9, pp. 209-292].
4Ernest
Labrousse's
1955callurging
historians
toengage
incomparative
research
onthe
bourgeoisiehas been heededin Europe. See [13]. By far the largestcomprehensive
researcheffort was accomplished
in the contextof the Univeristyof Bielefeld'sproject
on the Germanbourgeoisiein Europeanperspective.
For the resultssee[12, 15]. Other
importantworkson theEuropeanbourgeoisie
include[2, 4, 5, 18].
The Making of New York City's Bourgeoisie
/ 11
relationshipto the state. Consequently,courting practicesat balls are as
significantas alterations
in incorporation
law; the mustering
of armsof the elite
SeventhNew York Regimentin April of 1861 is as importantas changesin the
marketingof manufacturedgoods.None of theselevels, I emphasize,stood
separately;each aspectrelated to all others. Merchants,industrialists,and
bankerscannotbe understoodif reducedsolelyto their businessundertakings,
not least becausewithout understanding
changingfamily structures,gender
relationsandtherelationship
to thestate,thetrajectoryof economicandpolitical
changeremainsincomprehensible.
My third point is that by analyzingthe makingof the bourgeoisieas a
processthat occurredon relatedbut distinctlevelsof socialreality,I emphasize
change.Most fundamentally,
thisis reflectedin my definitionof the bourgeoisie.
I definethebourgeoisie
notonlyasa category
butalsoasa process,
theprocess
of theemergence
of sharedidentifies.After all, thecommonownership
of capital
did notnecessarily
translate
intocollectiveidentities.
Indeed,marketcompetition
anddiversemacro-economic
interests,as well as religiousand ethnicidentities,
potentiallydivided them.Therefore,beyondmasculineoccupationor wealth,
inclusionin the bourgeoisie
demandedadhesionto modelsof domesticityand
consumption.
5 At times,theseshared
socialidentities
thenwouldtranslate
into
sharedbeliefsandevenpolitics,albeitonlyrarely.
The fourthpoint I wouldlike to makeis that I situatethe bourgeoisie
firmlyin thepoliticalhistoryof theUnitedStatesandthemajortransformations
of thesecondhalf of thenineteenth
century.The stateobviouslymattereda great
dealto thebourgeoisie
andviceversa.Therefore,my workanalyzes
notonlythe
process
by whichthebourgeoisie
re-negotiates
therelationship
of the stateto the
market,but alsothe relationship
of the bourgeoisie
to the projectof bourgeois
societyin generalanddemocracy
in particular.
In conclusion,
the goalof thiswork is to bringthe historyof merchants,
industrialists,
andbankersintothecenterof thenarrativeof nineteenth
century
Americanhistoryand to enableus to systematically
compareEuropeand the
UnitedStates.This doesnot implya returnto the outmoded
assumptions
of a
half centuryago;indeed,theprojectis onlyviablefromthevantagepointof the
new historiographical
trendsof the pasttwentyyears.The excitingnew ideas,
insights,andmethodologies
of socialandpoliticalhistoryhaveposedthequestionsandprovidedthe toolsfor their answer.Oncewe engagethe issuesthese
historians
haveraisedwe will understand
howthe nineteenth
centurymadethe
bourgeoisie,
andhowthebourgeoisie
madethenineteenth
centuryUnitedStates.
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5Forthegeneral
pointsee[3,pp.2,77;6].
Sven Beckert / 12
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