Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community [Paperback]

Arthur J. Vidich (Author), Joseph Bensman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0252068904 | ISBN-13: 978-0252068904 | Publication Date: May 11, 2000 | Edition: Revised

"First published in 1958, "Small Town in Mass Society" set community studies on a new course by placing the small town within the framework of large-scale, bureaucratic mass society. Drawing attention to the dynamics of class and ethnicity in relation to economics and politics, this landmark work was among the first to document the consequences of centralized administration on life in American communities. Through a close study of ""Springdale, New York,"" Arthur J. Vidich and Joseph Bensman depict the small town as continuously and increasingly drawn into the central institutions and processes of the total society. Vidich and Bensman based their conclusions on extensive interviews with and close observation of the inhabitants of one community. The original publication of the book caused a sharp response among the town's citizens who felt their trust had been violated and their town misrepresented. The present volume includes the editorials and correspondence evoked by that controversy, the authors' articles describing their methodology, a new foreword by Michael W. Hughey, and a new afterword in which Arthur J. Vidich recounts the creation and history of the book."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A reprint of the classic ... small-town study combining sociology and anthropology... This edition will be of special interest because of a 28-page reminiscence by surviving author Arthur Vidich concerning the project and the ways in which colleagues and others reacted to the book." -- Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; Revised edition (May 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252068904
• ISBN-13: 978-0252068904
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,197,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars classic analysis of small town social relationships, January 14, 2003

By 

Mark D. Grover (Gray, Maine USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community (Paperback)

Having lived in a number of small towns, I am continually amazed at the relevance of this classic study to contemporary local politics and social relationships. Long before "investigative reporting", a grad student goes undercover for a year in a small town and reports his findings -- social groups, power, politics and tradition. This is not a dry scientific analysis, but a fascinating description of American life outside the city.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Disabused of naivete', October 18, 2009

By 

not a natural "Bob Bickel" (huntington, west virginia United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community (Paperback)

Small Town in Mass Society is one of the best and best known community studies produced during the era when that kind of research was a staple in sociology and political science. Beginning with the Lynd's Middletown studies in the '20's and '30's, community studies of varying quality were produced in comparatively large numbers through the '70's. Unfortunately, social scientists have lost interest in doing this kind of research, perhaps because it is methodlogically ethnographic, archival, and very time consuming. When, as a master's student, I made casual reference to a specific finding from a particular community study in a conversation with my advisor, he became uncharacterisically dismissive and sarcastic: "They've done hundreds of those things and what have they learned?" The unspoken answer was "nothing."

Nevertheless, and though I would never have admitted it to my advisor, I learned a great deal from reading community studies. Contrary to the prevailing and fallacious ethos of equality and participatory democracy, community studies taught me that sharply stratified social systems were pervasive, and power tended to me concentrated in the hands of upper middle class professionals and the wealthy. Furthermore, stratification was not fluid from generation to generation. Instead wrong or right side of the tracks in one gentration, meant much the same in the next generation.

Given the time during which most community studes were done, moreover, race played a predictable role. Discrimination against minorities, especially Blacks, was institutionalized in virtually countless ways. And women of all colors knew their place. Community studies vividly portrayed social systems that were essentially partiarchical. A man's world, indeed.

Seemingly innocuous observations from Small Town in Mass Society have made a lasting impression, in large measure because they took full toll of my youthful and oblivious naivete'. The principal of the local high school had a regular column in the town's newspaper titled, "After Five O'Clock." For the first time, disconnected dolt that I was, I realized that educational administration was not just a functional administrative task, but it was intensely political.

The conclusion that Vidich and Bensamen illustrated and emphasized again and again, was that, contrary to residents' view, their town was thoroughly suffused with influences from the larger, urbanized, modern and complex society in which they were located. The authors' made their case in skillful and compelling fashion, and it reminded me of interviews I had done with 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in the very rural West Virgina counties of Lincoln, Logan, and Mason. I had expected students to describe spending their free time running the ridges and hollers with a .22 rifle and a hunting dog. How naive! Instead, they reported long hours of wathching TV, playing video games, and, if one had been built, hanging out at the local strip mall.

Small Town and Mass Society is a classic. It is unfortunate that so many social scientists have become too methodlogically sophisticated to see past community studies' limitations and continue to produce them. Who knows what we would learn?

3.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings, July 29, 2010

By 

Son of Flint - See all my reviews

This review is from: Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community (Paperback)

Vidich lived in town for 3 years or so while doing his study. No one heard of Bensman until the book came out.

Needless to say, the residents were none too pleased with how they were portrayed. The book was the subject of many derisive floats in the annual Fourth of July parade, the last of which was an effigy of the author in a "honey wagon".

My father was John Flint - a town leader and member of what the book called "The Invisible Government". The concept seemed right to the author, but to the locals it was nonsense. Everyone knew who the town leaders were and had personal relationships with them. Besides, it wasn't invisible - it met daily in the middle booth on the left at The Fountain Inn restaurant - and anyone could drop by and kibitz or join the discussion.

The information gathered and the analysis done was to have remained within Cornell. The authors left Cornell prior to publishing the book. Cornell sent a rep to appologize to the town for the breach.

Interstingly, the book was one of the readings we were assigned in Sociology at college. After mentioning to the professor that it was "my" town and that my dad was one of the characters, he invited my father to be a guest lecturer. It did the class good to sse we weren't really a bunch of country buffoons.