The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class

The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class. Ed. by Burton J. Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston. (New York: Routledge, 2001. viii, 368 pp. Cloth, $85.00, ISBN 0-415-92641-6. Paper, $23.95, ISBN 0-415-92642-4.)

Building on the idea that cultural formations as well as economic conditions "make" class, this volume's essays focus less on occupations than on the material world of consumption, cultural institutions, and leisure time. The introduction by the co-editor Burton J. Bledstein and finely textured essays by two senior scholars-Joyce Appleby and Bruce Laurieset the stage for the history of middle-class formation in the early nineteenth century. But new work by younger scholars in the subsequent five sections reflects the maturing of middle-class studies. Elizabeth Alice White elaborates the "middle-class market culture" of women who express sentimentalism in fancywork they gift at charity fairs; Debby Applegate provides a theoretical engagement with the problem of middle-class formation too...