Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in 2003. In Public Markets and Civic Culture in Nineteenth-Century America Helen Tangires examines the role of the public marketplacesocial and architecturalas a key site in the development of civic culture in America. More than simply places for buying and selling food, Tangires explains, municipally owned and operated markets were the common ground where citizens and government struggled to define the shared values of the community. Public markets were vital to civic policy and reflected the profound belief in the moral economythe effort on the part of the municipality to maintain the social and political health of its community by regulating the ethics of trade in the urban marketplace for food. Tangires begins with the social, architectural, and regulatory components of the public market in the early republic, when cities embraced this ancient system of urban food distribution. By midcentury, the legalization of butcher shops in New York City and the incorporat
Trade ReviewThis well-illustrated book raises the intriguing possibility that municipal markets worked more like the neoclassical ideal than the unregulated markets ideologues hail.
—Keith D. Revell,
Journal of American HistoryAn important and useful introduction to an understudied fixture in the history of urban economic life, governance and landscape.
—Joshua Lupkin,
Journal of the Early RepublicTangires uses a wealth of sources in this fascinating study of a topic only recently getting the attention it deserves . . . Highly recommended.
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ChoiceTangire's work represents a major contribution to the understanding of social life in American cities.
—Richard G. Miller,
History: Reviews of New BooksThe intriguing tale Tangires tells concerns, chiefly, the eclipse of the public market in the interest of the evolution of both private shops and megastores.
—Margaretta M. Lovell,
Common-PlaceFor the first time we have in this book a historical overview of the public market place in America.
—Michal Sernoff,
Urban MorphologyFills a gap in the literature of early urban retailing.
—Terrence H. Witkowski,
Winterthur PortfolioPublic Markets and Civil Cultures undoubtedly stands as the definitive study of the American public market.
—Martin J. Hershock,
HistorianPublic Markets and Civic Culture brings to light the importance of markets in nineteenth-century urban life.
—Brian K. Geiger,
Material CultureTable of ContentsPreface
Introduction
Part I. Building The Common Ground
Chapter 1. Market Laws in the Early Republic
Chapter 2. The Market House
Chapter 3. Marketplace Culture
Part II. Cracks in the Market Walls
Chapter 4. The Legalizing of Private Meat Shops in Antebellum New York
Chapter 5. Market House Company Mania in Philadelphia
Chapter 6. The Landscape of DeregulationPart III Regaining a Share of the Marketplace
Chapter 7. Consumer Protection and the New Moral Economy
Chapter 8. Rebirth of the Municipal Market Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
