The Yankee West - Community Life on the Michigan Frontier (Paperback, New edition)

Susan Gray explores community formation among New England migrants to the Upper Midwest in the generation before the Civil War. Focusing on Kalamazoo County in southwestern Michigan, she examines how 'Yankees' moving west reconstructed familiar communal institutions on the frontier while confronting forces of profound socioeconomic change, particularly the rise of the market economy and the commercialization of agriculture. Gray argues that Yankee culture was a type of ethnic identity that was transplanted to the Midwest and reshaped there into a new regional identity. In chapters on settlement patterns, economic exchange, the family, religion, and politics, Gray traces the culture that the migrants established through their institutions as a defense against the uncertainty of the frontier. She demonstrates that although settlers sought rapid economic development, they remained wary of the threat that the resulting spirit of competition posed to their communal ideals. As isolated settlements developed into flourishing communities linked to eastern markets, however, Yankee culture was transformed. What was once a communal culture became a class culture, appropriated by a newly formed rural bourgeoisie to explain their success as the triumphant emergence of the Midwest and to identify their region as true America. |Using Charlotte, North Carolina, as a case study of the dynamics of racial change in the 'moderate' South, Davison Douglas analyzes the desegregation of the city's public schools from the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision through the early 1970s, when the city embarked upon the most ambitious school busing plan in the nation.

General

Imprint:	The University of North Carolina Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	November 1996
First published:	November 1996
Authors:	Susan E. Gray
Dimensions:	235 x 156 x 17mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	242
Edition:	New edition
ISBN-13:	978-0-8078-4610-0
Categories:	Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Rural communities Books > History > American history > General Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
LSN:	0-8078-4610-4
Barcode:	9780807846100

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