The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities [Paperback]

Richard Lyman Bushman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0679744142 | ISBN-13: 978-0679744146 | Publication Date: August 31, 1993

This lively and authoritative volume makes clear that the quest for taste and manners in America has been essential to the serious pursuit of a democratic culture. Spanning the material world from mansions and silverware to etiquette books, city planning, and sentimental novels, Richard L. Bushman shows how a set of values originating in aristocratic court culture gradually permeated almost every stratum of American society and served to prevent the hardening of class consciousness. A work of immense and richly nuanced learning, The Refinement of America newly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If Bushman is correct, it was not until the mid-19th century that a majority of middle-class Americans displayed a concern for taste and beauty in their dress, comportment, manners and houses. From colonial times to the Revolution, he writes, gentility was the exclusive province of the gentry--wealthy merchants, planters, clergymen and professionals who copied a Renaissance-inspired ideal imitated by Europe's aristocracy. This intriguing social history shows how a diluted version of gentility became an underpinning of middle-class self-respect as millions of Americans moved into houses with book-lined parlors, consulted etiquette manuals and cultivated gardens. Bushman, a Columbia history professor, argues that the worldly, leisure-oriented genteel code clashed with egalitarian and religious values yet fueled the ethos of consumption that helped capitalism thrive. Photos. BOMC and History Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

What were the effects of refinement on personalities, society, and the material world in early America? In this work, Bushman maps the spread of refinement in 18th- and 19th-century America. The first section, "Gentility, 1700-1790," takes the "parlor life" movement from the urban wealthy, spreading across the land to encompass the small-town prosperous to affluent rural estates with a refined life limited to gentry. It exerted narrow influence on the lives of middle- and working-class Americans. The second section, "Respectability, 1790-1850," maps refinement as it spread down through the social structure to include the middle class and influence the working class. During this time, gentility expanded, with more people acquiring possessions, parlors, and the mannerisms of the genteel style. Bushman does a good job of showing the historical origins of refinement, its expansion in the United States, and its reflections in current society. Important to any library interested in the cultural life of America.
- Terri P. Summey, Emporia State Univ. Lib., Kan.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (August 31, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679744142
• ISBN-13: 978-0679744146
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the cultural phenomenon of "gentility" examined, August 21, 2002

By 

J. Russ (STOW, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (Paperback)

Richard L. Bushman, in his book Refinement of America, takes a fresh look at Colonial America and the cultural phenomena of the rise of "gentility." Taking a somewhat cross-disciplined approach to his material, he has combined the traditional historian's look at documentary evidence such as probate records, with an antiquarian's curatorial view of historic sites and an anthropological look at society and social customs. By close examination of the proliferation in material goods after 1690 as well as various other changes that show movement from from survival levels of existance to flourishing societies in the new colonies, Bushman lays groundwork demonstrating the profound impact that ideas of gentility had in the stratification of American society into classes. Perhaps the most interesting point that Bushman raises is the potential for cross-class mobility that existed in Colonial America. By examining the changes from one generation to the next, Bushman is able to show the push toward gentility and gentrification among a rising middle class of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Bushman, in describing the cities and society of eighteenth century America, also makes comparisons to the English and European societies--with their similar social functions and gentility. There is, however, a distinctly American and republican cast to the colonial culture that Bushman is pointing out by these comparisons. American genteel society is not merely a transplanted European aristocracy, but rather a new sort of upper class where status is gained through personal achievement; and family connections, while capable of giving advantage, are secondary to individual skills and success.

Overall, Bushman has painted a fascinating side of early American culture from a new perspective -- seeing a deep cultural phenomena of gentility taking shape and in turn shaping the American mind. With his in-depth look and cross-generational approach he makes a good case for his viewpoint on gentility. His variety of documents--probate papers and estates inventories taken together with letters and memoirs, balance out the total lives of his subjects. If there is any weakness to Bushman's book it is that it treats primanily with a such a small segment at the top of the social ladder and seems to neglect the daily lives of the lower classes against which the genteel must be juxtaposed. In all fairness, to have added a closer look at a wider cross-section of population would take far more than one volume and, in fact, might be better left to future texts. Bushman is to be commended for his socio-cultural approach to a issue that helped to shape American individuality and yet might never have been looked at closely by purely traditional historians.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, May 6, 2000

By 

Bianca Sultana (U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (Paperback)

In The Refinement of America, Richard L. Bushman focuses on gentility and how the desire to become one of society's elite led to the formation of a whole new class of consumers. The soaring demand for such accoutrements as porcelain and silver made way for industrial capitalism by creating a market economy. Bushman takes a positive outlook on the spread of commerce and gentility throughout the 18th century British Atlantic World. The gentrification and refinement of America created the desire for social mobility, the American Dream. "Gentility offered the hope that however poor or however undignified their work, could become middle class by disciplining themselves and adopting a few outward forms of genteel living." (Bushman, xvi) In this way lines between classes were blurred. Education and worldliness became more important than ever before, as being polite and well-spoken marked respectability. Bushman's work is easy to read and enjoyable. Growing up in present-day America, we are all taught by our parents to say "please" and "thank you," and Bushman offers us insight into the origins of polite culture. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning a little bit more about America (particularly, the 18th century) that is not found in school-used text books.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing book, December 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (Paperback)

I bought this book for an American history class in college, and absolutely loved it. The clear thesis, multiple examples, and intellectual writing style of this book made every read enjoyable, even though it was assigned reading! I'd highly recommend it for American social history buffs or anyone who enjoys masterful historical writing.