The boundaries of American political culture in the Civil War era

By Mark E. Neely

Subjects: Cultural Policy, Anthropology, Politics and government, Popular Culture, Material culture, United states, politics and government, 19th century, Political culture, United states, history, 19th century, HISTORY, Social classes, united states, Minstrel shows, Social classes, Civil War Period (1850-1877), SOCIAL SCIENCE, POLITICAL SCIENCE, Cultural, Social conditions, Public Policy, History, United states, social conditions, to 1865, Political clubs, Political participation

Description: Did preoccupations with family and work crowd out interest in politics in the nineteenth century, as some have argued? Arguing that social historians have gone too far in concluding that Americans were not deeply engaged in public life, and that political historians have gone too far in asserting that politics informed all of Americans' lives, the author of this book seeks to gauge the importance of politics for ordinary people in the Civil War era.