Most studies of eighteenth-century community life in America have focused on New England, and in many respects the New England town has become a model for our understanding of communities throughout the United States during this period. In this study of a mid-Atlantic town, Stephanie Grauman Wolf describes a very different way of organizing society, indicating that the New England model may prove atypical. In addition, her analysis suggests the origins of twentieth-century social patterns in eighteenth-century life. Germantown, Pennsylvania, was chosen for study because it was a small urban center characterized by an ethnically and religiously mixed population of high mobility. The author uses quantitative analysis and sample case study to examine all aspects of the community. She finds that heterogeneity and mobility had a marked effect on urban development--on landholding, occupation, life style, and related areas; community organization for the control of government and church affairs; and the structure and demographic development of the: family. Her work represents an important advance not only in our understanding of eighteenth-century American society, but also in the ways in which we investigate it.

More Americans trace their ancestry to Germany than to any other country. Arguably, German Americans form America's largest ethnic group. Yet they have a remarkably low profile today, reflecting a dramatic, twentieth-century retreat from German-American identity. In this age of multiculturalism, why have German Americans gone into ethnic eclipse--and where have they ended up? Becoming Old Stock represents the first in-depth exploration of that question. The book describes how German Philadelphians reinvented themselves in the early twentieth century, especially after World War I brought a nationwide anti-German backlash. Using quantitative methods, oral history, and a cultural analysis of written sources, the book explores how, by the 1920s, many middle-class and Lutheran residents had redefined themselves in "old-stock" terms--as "American" in opposition to southeastern European "new immigrants." It also examines working-class and Catholic Germans, who came to share a common identity with other European immigrants, but not with newly arrived black Southerners. Becoming Old Stock sheds light on the way German Americans used race, American nationalism, and mass culture to fashion new identities in place of ethnic ones. It is also an important contribution to the growing literature on racial identity among European Americans. In tracing the fate of one of America's largest ethnic groups, Becoming Old Stock challenges historians to rethink the phenomenon of ethnic assimilation and to explore its complex relationship to American pluralism.

"In Suburb in the City, David Contosta tells the story of how Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, once a small milling and farming town, evolved to become both a suburban enclave for wealthy Philadelphians and a part of the city itself." "In 1854, the railroad connected Philadelphia and Chestnut Hill and the village was annexed by the city. Attuned to the romantic currents of the age, the wealthy men and women who moved to Chestnut Hill believed that the village's semi-rural surroundings might uplift them physically, spiritually, emotionally, and morally. At the same time, they wanted to continue to enjoy the best that the city had to offer while escaping from its more unpleasant aspects: dirt, crime, disease, and other shortcomings. They thus cultivated a dual identity with both suburb and city." "Ironically, this led to a sense of division as prosperous suburbanites held themselves aloof from the resident shopkeepers and domestic servants who provided so many of their creature comforts. Being a suburb in the city also meant that Chestnut Hill could not control its political destiny, as communities outside the municipal limits could. In response, residents developed a number of civic organizations that became a sort of quasi government." "Contosta's study of Chestnut Hill thus illuminates the divided and often ambivalent feelings that Americans hold about their great cities. He includes anecdotes gleaned from dozens of interviews with men and women of many backgrounds - lawyers, nuns, debutantes, grocers, craftsmen, and former servants - who tell of their lives in Chestnut Hill. More than one hundred photographs, many never before published, further enliven this analysis of suburban America."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Unprecedented in scope and critical perspective, American and the Germans presents an analysis of the history of the Germans in America and of the turbulent relations between Germany and the United States. The two volumes bring together research in such diverse fields as ethnic studies, political science, linguistics, and literature, as well as American and German History. Contributors are leading American and German scholars, such as Kathleen Neils Conzen, Joshua A. Fishman, Peter Gay, Harold Jantz, Günter Moltmann, Steven Muller, Theo Sommer, Fritz Stern, Herbert A. Strauss, Gerhard L. Weinberg, and Don Yoder. These scholars assess the ethnicity and acculturation of German-Americans from the seventeenth century to the twentieth; the state of German language and culture in the United States; World War I as a turning point in relations between German and America; the political, economic, and cultural relations before and after World War II; and the midcentury state of affairs between the two countries. Special chapters are devoted to the Pennsylvania Germans, Jewish-German immigration after 1933, Americanism in Germany, and a critical appraisal of current research. American and the Germans presents a fascinating introduction to the subject as well as new perspectives for a more critical and comprehensive study of its many facets. It can be used as a reader in the fields of German studies, American studies, political science, European and German history, American history, ethnic studies, and German and American literature. Although each of the 49 contributions reflects the state of current scholarship, they are formulated with the uninitiated reader in mind.

This is an annotated bibliography of 20th century books through 1983, and is a reworking of American Studies: An Annotated Bibliography of Works on the Civilization of the United States, published in 1982. Seeking to provide foreign nationals with a comprehensive and authoritative list of sources of information concerning America, it focuses on books that have an important cultural framework, and does not include those which are primarily theoretical or methodological. It is organized in 11 sections: anthropology and folklore; art and architecture; history; literature; music; political science; popular culture; psychology; religion; science/technology/medicine; and sociology. Each section contains a preface introducing the reader to basic bibliographic resources in that discipline and paragraph-length, non-evaluative annotations. Includes author, title, and subject indexes. ISBN 0-521-32555-2 (set) : $150.00.

This book is a work of political archaeology. It focuses on the people and events at a particular colonial farm in Germantown, Pennsylvania; their stories provide a micro and macro view of economic, social, demographic, and agro-ecological change. Cresheim Farm shows how one mostly unknown but strategically placed piece of land—home to an extraordinary array of people, including early anti-slavery and anti-Nazi activists, the first woman editor of the Saturday Evening Post and a robber baron—can tell, affect and reflect the history of a nation. The writing is historically grounded and academic, future-oriented, deeply researched, and immediate. Cresheim Farm serves as a lens through which to observe and understand social forces, such as the launching point of freedom and democracy movements, white privilege, slavery, and genocidal westward expansion. The past lives on in all of us.