America between the Revolution and the Civil War was a society in full adolescence. Vibrant, cocky, feeling its own strength, and ready to take on the world, America was driven by an upstart economy and a capitalist bravado. The early republic, argues Paul Gilje in his cogent introduction, was the crucial period in the development of that trademark characteristic of American society modern capitalism. In this collection of essays, eight social and economic historians consider the rise of capitalism in the early American republic. Expanding upon traditional interpretations of economic development encouraged and controlled by merchants and financiers these essays demonstrate the centrality of common men and women as artisans, laborers, planters and farmers in the dramatic transitions of the period. They show how changes in the workshop, home, and farm were as crucial as those in banks and counting houses. Capping these fundamental changes was the rise of consumerism among Americans and the development of a "mentality of capitalism" that ensured the success of this new economic system with all its benefits and costs. Contributing authors include Paul A. Gilje, Jeanne Boydston, Christopher Clark, Douglas R. Egerton, Cathy D. Matson, Jonathan Prude, Richard Stott, and Gordon S. Wood.

This volume represents one of the first efforts to harvest the rapidly emerging scholarship in the field of American rural history. Building on the insights and methodologies that social historians have directed toward urban life, the contributors explore the past as it unfolded in the rural settings in which most Americans have lived during most of American history.
The essays cover a broad range of topics: the character and consequences of manufacturing and consumerism in the antebellum countryside of the Northeast; the transition from slavery to freedom in Southern plantation and nonplantation regions; the dynamics of community-building and inheritance among Midwestern native and immigrant farmers; the panorama of rural labor systems in the Far West; and the experience of settled farming communities in periods of slowed economic growth. The central theme is the complex and often conflicting development of commercial and industrial capitalism in the American countryside. Together the essays place rural societies within the context of America's "Great Transformation."

At the time of its original publication, Working-Class America represented the new labor history par excellence. A roster of noteworthy scholars in the field contribute original essays written during a pivotal time in the nation's history and within the discipline. Moving beyond historical-sociological analyses, the authors take readers inside the lives of the real men and women behind the statistics. The result is a classic collection focused on the human dimensions of the field, one valuable not only as a resource for historiography but as a snapshot of workers and their concerns in the 1980s.