The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790-1840 (Everyday Life in America)

by Jack Larkin

Book Overview

Compact and insightful. --New York Times Book Review Jack Larkin has retrieved the irretrievable; the intimate facts of everyday life that defined what people were really like.--American Heritage This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060916060
• Release Date: November 1989
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.9" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Everyday life in America before the railroads & industrialization

History is not just about great men and wars; as this book astutely illustrates, it's also about the daily lives of the majority of the people. Dealing with the time period 1790-1840, a pre-industrialized era for the most part, Jack Larkin examines what life was like for most Americans at that time. Housing, occupations, entertainments, and family life are described; what it was like to travel, what happened when one got sick, the life of children, and how holidays were celebrated are also dealt with. Somewhat unique for a book like this, a long chapter concerns itself with the "private" lives of people: dating, marriage, sexual relations, pregnancies and child bearing, the role of the privy and chamber pot all get their due. Larkin's book is a compendium of facts and information regarding everyday life, including those for slaves, urban and rural dwellers, rich and poor - and is fascinating in that regard. It would be difficult to think of those times as "the good old days," though many old-timers of the day probably did, as, for example, "simple" chores (to most of us) such as washing clothes took all day and could exhaust many a hardy woman, not to mention the disease and filth that seemed to be everywhere. But by 1840 older citizens could detect changes (mainly new inventions and techniques) that reduced socializing and diminished craftsmanship, and mourned a way of life that was passing away. Progress has its penalties for every generation, and Larkin's book offers a glimpse at a way of life long since eclipsed by newer ways. There was actually life before TV (not to mention electricity and plumbing) - yikes!

Excellent Summary of Everyday Life

I am currently engaged in the effort of writing a family history and wanted to understand better the rythms of everyday life in New England in the early Republic.I found Mr. Larkin's book insightful, extremely well researched, and a trove of rich anecdotes about life in this period. I was surprised in my own research, for instance, to discover that my early ancestors had a child just five months after their wedding. I realized from Mr. Larkin's book that early births in this era were quite common. Sturbridge Village Society conducted exhaustive reviews of marriage and birth certificates in the 1780s and 1790s and calculated that fully a third of New England rural women were already pregnant when wed. This is the kind of meticulous research that enriches social history.Equally interesting for me was his description of how TB destroyed entire families, as happened in a branch of my family in the 1870s. I was unaware tuberculosis was such a common and ferocious killer at the time.The book proved invaluable in understanding the world of my ancestors.A final pleasure is Mr. Larkin's confident and flowing prose. Works on social history can be ponderous, especially if well documented. Larkin achieves the rare combination of copious detail and elegant style.

Every man was an island

As Larkin bascially explains in his introduction: in early America, life was comprised of your existence, plain and simple. This book does an incredible job at making life, all of it, every detail, "back then" a tangible learning experience.Meticulously researched, "Reshaping of Everyday Life" does a fantastic job of spanning all sections of America, and all facets of American life. It showcases a heap of information derived from diaries, letters, censuses, artifacts, news clippings, etc. etc. etc. It's a monumental deal of info that could easily calculate into a dry piece of reading, but it's not dry. It's very lively, and very interesting, shedding light on aspects of American life easily taken for granted today, but vitally important to their very existence. The book is wonderfully laid out in easy to access sections and index (sounds trivial, but when dealing with history books you don't know how helpful this is), with these fascinating pieces of information strewn about every single page in a humanistic fashion. But the best part of the book is it's ability to flow. It doesn't matter where you start reading, it moves quickly, with style and a sense of purpose. I must say, other than memoirs, I've never had such an enjoyable time, or felt like I immediately assimilated the material as I read it.This is a solid and excellent book for anyone who wants to learn a great deal of quality information quickly and easily. Highly recommended.

Touring the Homely Side of America's Past

I wish I could give this book six stars. The Reshaping of Everyday Life took me on a delightful tour of America during its infancy and provided the sights, sounds and smells of yesterday. Each chapter unraveled the tightly wrapped threads of legend and myth that has muddied my view of our past to reveal the rich and varied layers which amazed, amused and amended my hindsight. Since ordinary folk, doing their humdrum tasks, are both the audience and the participants in historic drama, I want to understand their ways and Reshaping has certainly helped in this quest. In this book, Jack Larkin has given me the details that will paint the scenery and add depth to my future explorations of the time period. Now when I think of Andrew Jackson, I can visualize the homes where his constituents lived and the games they liked to play and the places where they shopped. When I read about the great western migration that began in 1837, I can see the clothing the immigrants wore, the titles of the books they packed and the music that followed them west. Jack Larkin accomplished this visual rendering of yesterday with a smooth writing style that never breaks an even and easy stride. "By the late 1830s cookstoves were coming into use among middling city families and in Northern commercial villages. In 1838, "the year we had a new cooking stove, the first one in town,' recalled Susan Blunt, who grew up in a bustling rural commercial center, `the neighbors said we would all be sick-taken off in rimmers as they called them."In addition, the book offered many surprises that added new insight to time and place. "Phineas T. Barnum of Bethel, Connecticut, whose father was a middling farmer and tavern keeper, remembered that in the 1820s he and his brother customarily slept three in a bed with the Irishman who labored on his family farm." This kind of nugget adds texture to reading any history book. Whether I am reading a biography of Jackson or a book on the opening of the Erie Canal, I consider this book a handy reference tool. However, the book stands alone as a fun read for anyone including the casual history buff or students who are tired of cramming bare names, disconnected dates and dreary military battles into their heads. I have recommended it to a high school junior, an elderly uncle, and a history teacher. All enjoyed it immensely. It is my favorite in the series of six entries from Harper Perennial.

Shaping Our America

The period of 1790-1840 was a time of maturation and growth for the new nation. It was an era of transition from revolutionary times to adulthood. This time saw a change in many social customs and regional ways of life. In 1790, America was a relatively small country which was mostly confined to the portion east of the Appalachians. Kentucky was the frontier. Agriculture was the occupation for most families and was done on a subsistence basis. Each farmer produced a little bit of everything that his family would need to survive. Homes were being carved out of the wilderness, and for the average family, survival was a struggle. Large families were the norm, as children were an asset to the farm. Many houses were little more than shacks. They provided little or no privacy. Travel was very slow and dangerous, and social visits were closely tied to economic negotiations. Barn and house raisings, along with haying and corn husking, were times for families to socialize, but also times to get things done. By 1840, many things had changed. The frontier was pushing westward. The people were spreading out, but at the same time growing closer together. The development of the railroad, steam boats, and canal system greatly sped up travel, although they did not necessarily make it any safer. These innovations drew the nation together and encouraged regional specialization. This was also a period of rapid industrialization. The manufacture of textiles was being consolidated under one roof and women were leaving home to work in the mills. Combined with better transportation, industrialization marked the beginning of the end for subsistence farming. Products could now be sold for profit. Family sizes began to decrease as women married at a later age and lengthened the period between births. The standard of living increased and more people had larger houses. Houses had more rooms and these rooms were arranged in such a way as to emphasize privacy. Social activity also began to separate itself from economic interests. Farmers looked more closely after their money and profit. While barn and house raisings were still necessary, the party atmosphere that surrounded them began to disappear. Corn huskings were looked upon as wasteful and they also disappeared. Geographically, the nation was separated into three regions. In the North, mainly New England, the people were known for their austere personalities. The region had poor soil compared to the "old northwest" and became primarily a dairy producer. On the western frontier the people generally lived in poverty and were more open in manner and expression of character. In the South, the people were known for being both gentlemanly and brutal. Plantation owners were a throwback to European aristocracy. They were still able to own slaves but could not import them. A work day on such a plantation would involve watching the slaves from dawn to dusk