Tales of Two Cities: Race and Economic Culture in Early Republican North and South America

Camilla Townsend

Published by University of Texas Press 2000

Tales of Two Cities

Race and Economic Culture in Early Republican North and South America

Camilla Townsend

https://doi.org/10.7560/781672

Overview
Contents

About this book

With a common heritage as former colonies of Europe, why did the United States so outstrip Latin America in terms of economic development in the nineteenth century? In this innovative study, Camilla Townsend challenges the traditional view that North Americans succeeded because of better attitudes toward work—the Protestant work ethic—and argues instead that they prospered because of differences in attitudes towards workers that evolved in the colonial era.

Townsend builds her study around workers' lives in two very similar port cities in the 1820s and 1830s. Through the eyes of the young Frederick Douglass in Baltimore, Maryland, and an Indian woman named Ana Yagual in Guayaquil, Ecuador, she shows how differing attitudes towards race and class in North and South America affected local ways of doing business. This empirical research significantly clarifies the relationship between economic culture and racial identity and its long-term effects.

Author / Editor information

Camilla Townsend is Professor of History at Rutgers University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Maps and Tables Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Prologue: First Impressions Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I
1. In the Streets of the Cities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2. Conquest and Colony Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
Part II
3. A Merry Party and Serious Business The Elite of Guayaquil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
4. Strawberry Parties and Habits of Industry The Elite of Baltimore Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
Part III
5. The Quest of the ‘‘Personas Decentes’’ The Middling Ranks of Guayaquil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
6. The Quest of the Contributing Citizens The Middling Ranks of Baltimore Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Part IV
7. Working on Dead Man’s Rock The Poor of Guayaquil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
8. ‘‘To Become the Unfortunate Tenants of Your Alms House’’ The Poor of Baltimore Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	289
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 344
Keywords: Baltimore; Guayaquil Ecuador

eBook

Published: January 1, 2010
ISBN: 9780292798816