The Flowering of the Third America: The Making of an Organizational Society, 1850-1920 by Maury Klein

From the Publisher

In a provocative new interpretation of a transforming era, 1850D1920, Klein integrates social, economic, and business history and stresses the driving role of technology in creating a complex society of many cultures. As increasing organization made life more fragmented and alienated for ordinary persons, Klein argues, a unifying social thread was provided by a surprising new source: the consumer economy. American Ways Series.

Choice

In seemingly effortless prose...done with freshness and skill.

Virginia Quarterly Review

Klein does an admirable job synthesizing a great deal of information.

Journal of American History

A balanced book...packed with significant facts...clear and concise.

Publishers Weekly

As corporations came to dominate American life in the second half of the 19th century, individualism remained ``the most prized virtue of our folklore.'' But in reality, asserts Klein, big corporations, lobbies, political machines and professional associations gained vast powers at the expense of consumers, workers, reformers and the disorganized poor and struggling. This vibrant, concise social history of America's transformation from a rural, agrarian society to an urban, industrialized, multicultural one demonstrates that increasing organization of the corporate economy paradoxically made life ever more fragmented and alienated for ordinary persons. To fill the gap, argues Klein, a University of Rhode Island history professor, the consumer economy provided a unifying social thread with standardized products, films, magazines, radio, sports and other cultural meeting points. Klein ( The Life and Legend of Jay Gould ) crams in a wealth of information on everything from the invention of Coca-Cola to the economic havoc following WW I. (Oct.)

Library Journal

From his analysis of the leading economic, technological, industrial, and social developments of the period, Klein concludes that it was not until the years between 1865 and World War I that the United States was transformed from an agrarian economy into a powerful industrial nation--``the Third America.'' It still lacked a cohesive center because of continuing racial, ethnic, and religious differences. The rise of the consumer economy and its rapid expansion with growing prosperity, however, gave the nation a needed unifying force by about 1920. Klein ( The Life and Legend of Jay Gould , LJ 4/15/86) provides original and stimulating insights, which are sometimes obscured by a writing style plagued by loose organization, redundancy, and excessive and sometimes trivial detail. The bibliographies are excellent. Suitable for school and public libraries.-- Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., CUNY

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Table of Contents