The "self-made" man is a familiar figure in nineteenth-century
American history. But the relentless expansion of market relations
that facilitated such stories of commercial success also ensured
that individual bankruptcy would become a prominent feature in the
nation's economic landscape. In this ambitious foray into the
shifting character of American capitalism, Edward Balleisen
explores the economic roots and social meanings of bankruptcy,
assessing the impact of widespread insolvency on the evolution of
American law, business culture, and commercial society.
Balleisen makes innovative use of the rich and previously
overlooked court records generated by the 1841 Federal Bankruptcy
Act, building his arguments on the commercial biographies of
hundreds of failed business owners. He crafts a nuanced account of
how responses to bankruptcy shaped two opposing elements of
capitalist society in mid-nineteenth-century America--an
entrepreneurial ethos grounded in risk taking and the ceaseless
search for new markets, new products, and new ways of organizing
economic activity, and an urban, middle-class sensibility
increasingly averse to the dangers associated with independent
proprietorship and increasingly predicated on salaried,
white-collar employment.
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