Paths of Resistance: Tradition and Dignity in Industrializing Missouri - Hardcover

Thelen, David R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195036670 ISBN 13: 9780195036671

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1986

Synopsis

The years between 1865 and 1920 were eventful ones for the sake of Missouri. It was not only the time of Jesse James, Scott Joplin, and Mark Twain, of progressive governors Joseph Folk and Herbert Hadley, of the first general strike in St. Louis and some especially vicious vigilante activity, it was also the time when Missouri, like many other states, was being transformed by the tides of industrialism and economic growth. This social history examines the social and economic forces that resisted economic development in Missouri. Here, Thelen explores the various ways that people attempted to maintain their values and dignity in the face of overwhelming new economic, cultural, and political pressures, and analyzes the grassroots patterns that emerged in response to rapid social change. Thelen, who is one of the leading historians of the Progressive period in America, contends that people found their strength not in class solidarity or other Marxist responses but in what he calls "the resistance of folk memories", which allowed them to call upon the best elements of their collective past to help them cope with the new situation.

About this title

About the Author:

David R. Thelen is at Professor of History, Indiana University, and editor of the Journal of American History.

From Library Journal:

Thelen's study of 19th-century Missouri is more far-reaching than the subtitle suggests; indeed it is paradigmatic, a subtle and powerful account of how rural society was transformed by industrialization and economic growth. It explores how a society anchored to the past defensively responded to the erosion of a traditional way of life and culture. Resistance to the new competitive market economy took many forms: vigilantism; hostility to public education; banditry; the 1877 general strike uniting black and white, skilled and unskilled; the rise of an oppositional cultureand how imaginatively used is Scott Joplin and ragtimeand "the resistance of folk memories." There is a superb account of local Populism and Progressivism. Irresistably intelligent and readable, this is primarily for subject specialists. Milton Cantor, History Dept., Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0195036670
• ISBN 13: 9780195036671
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324