Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (A Norton Paperback) [Paperback]

Anthony F. C. Wallace (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1980 | Series: A Norton Paperback

A celebrated triumph of historiography, Rockdale tells the story of the Industrial Revolution as it was experienced by the men, women, and children of the cotton-manufacturing town of Rockdale, Pennsylvania. The lives of workers, managers, inventors, owners, and entrepreneurs are brilliantly illuminated by Anthony F. C. Wallace, who also describes the complex technology that governed all of Rockdale’s townspeople. Wallace examines the new relationships between employer and employee as work and workers moved out of the fields into the closed-in world of the spinning mule, the power loom, and the mill office. He brings to light the impassioned battle for the soul of the mill worker, a struggle between the exponents of the Enlightenment and Utopian Socialism, on the one hand, and, on the other, the ultimately triumphant champions of evangelical Christianity.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Extraordinary and brilliant. . . . Rockdale has the dimensions of an important event in American historical writing. It is not only a splendid reconstruction of the past . . . [b]ut a powerful interpretive reading that reconceives the very basis for the study of American industrialization. . . . A book of epic proportions.”—New York Times Book Review

(New York Times Book Review ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Anthony F. C. Wallace is University Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. His many books include Revitalizations and Mazeways, Modernity and Mind, and The Social Context of Innovation, all published by the University of Nebraska Press.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 553 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (June 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393009912
• ISBN-13: 978-0393009910
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,470,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Breadth, October 20, 2010

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CarvedBlock - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (Paperback)

Rockdale is not your average historiographic novel. It is in fact a case study: but a case study of a Community over period of decades. It provides a masterful description of a society during transformation. The Detail of the account is truly intriguing. Even if you do not agree/care what Wallace tries to convey, the book is a prime source of ethnographic information about religion, early capitalism, industrial revolution, and Christian capitalism in 19th century East Coast, North America. It is exciting to read; there's a lot of detailed human stories.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice intimate view of my neighborhood, May 7, 2007

By 

Eva Vanstratum (Aston, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (A Norton Paperback) (Paperback)

Living west of Philadelphia, you get a sense of history just seeing old mill remnants and stone homes. This lets you see how they got there. My side of Aston, PA is the site of all this going on, people, mills, economics, religion. Neat book.