The best of Virginia’s antebellum social histories include six titles from a focus of local, ethnic, gender and religious investigation. We also include seven titles from bibliographies citing out of print books. Social and cultural histories include “American City, Southern Place” investigating antebellum Richmond, and “The Virginia Germans” looks at the two major influxes of a Virginia ethnic group.
Gender history is represented by “We Mean To Be Counted” documenting the many ways Virginian women contributed in the public sphere of policy debate, and “Revolution of the Word” describes the evolution of the antebellum novel and women as the readers of the novel. Married life beginning in the New Nation period and extending into antebellum Virginia is related in “Marriage in the New Nation”. Religious history of the period among Virginian Methodists and Baptists is addressed in “The Gospel Working Up”.
These books are all used in bibliographies found in peer-reviewed surveys of Virginia history of scholarly merit. Additional insights are used from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.
For book reviews at The Virginia Historian.com in this historical period addressing other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
American City, Southern Place
Greg D. Kimball wrote American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond in 2000. It is currently available in paperback. He evaluates the development of Richmond from 1840 through the Civil War both in its American characteristics and its Southern ties to slavery. He studies native merchants and manufacturers, German artisans and shopkeepers, British ironworkers and African Americans, slave and free in the city.
Richmond was part of a national urban culture including mass party politics, reform movements, Victorian values and neoclassical architecture. It was also tied to the rural slave-holding hinterland of the Piedmont and Tidewater. Richmond residents had various connections to world communities and to Northern society. Learn more to buy “American City, Southern Place” here for your bookshelf.
The Virginia Germans
Klaus Wust wrote The Virginia Germans in 1969. It is currently available in paperback. Wust traces the history of German migrations into Virginia across three centuries along with their “Virginianization” acculturating into the dominant English traditions.
For many years the communities of the mass migration of the 1700s from Pennsylvania and Maryland lived in pockets of “Little Germany”. They were primarily of peasant farming stock. The immigrants in the 1800s into Richmond were primarily artisans and shopkeepers. Learn more to buy “The Virginia Germans” here for your bookshelf.
Frederick Siegal wrote Roots of Southern Distinctiveness: Tobacco and Society in Danville, Virginia, 1780-1865 1987. It is out of print, but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “Roots of Southern Distinctiveness” here for your bookshelf.
Orville Vernon Burgton and Robert C. McMath Jr. edited Class, Conflict and Consensus: Antebellum Southern Community Studies in 1982. Learn more to buy “Class, Conflict and Consensus” here for your bookshelf.
Edward Ayers and John C. Willis edited The Edge of the South: Life in Nineteenth-Century Virginia in 1991. It is out of print, but available on line in paperback new and used. Learn more to buy “The Edge of the South” here for your bookshelf.
We Mean to be Counted
Elizabeth R. Varon wrote We Mean To Be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia in 1998. It is currently available in paperback. Virginia’s elite and middle class women used voluntary associations, legislative petitions, and political campaigns to advance their political views. They published reports, essays and novels. While they could not vote, they informed the men who did, becoming opinion makers and architects of public policy. Continuing throughout the antebellum period, they sought to protect the young and promulgate their faith through Sunday schools for both white and black.
In the 1820s they established orphan asylums and temperance societies. In the 1830s they became important in the American Colonization. In the 1840s they enlisted in the Whig party “womanhood” of moral uplift. In the 1850s they served as mediators both defending their section and calling for national unity to avoid conflict. But in the 1860s they became Southern nationalists. Learn more to buy “We Mean to be Counted” here for your bookshelf.
Revolution and the Word
Cathy N. Davidson wrote Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America in 2004. It is currently available in paperback. The revolution in novel writing, novel publishing and novel reading begins in the Revolutionary period with severe censure of novels and women novel readers from male leadership in churches and governments. Davidson studies gender and genre differences relative to the sentimental, picaresque and Gothic novel.
In the antebellum period there was a gradual maturing of the novel publishing industry. The radical message celebrating intellectual women carried a message that was individualistic for self-improvement and self-education. Learn more to buy “Revolution and the Word” here for your bookshelf.
Marriage in the Early Republic
Anya Jabur wrote Marriage in the Early Republic: Elizabeth and William Wirt and the Companionate Ideal in 1998. It is currently available in paperback. William Wirt, aspiring lawyer of Swiss-German immigrants, married his wife Elizabeth, daughter of a wealthy Richmond merchant, promising a “companionate” marriage. Yet Elizabeth dutifully moved from Williamsburg to Norfolk to Richmond to Washington DC and finally to Baltimore as her husband practiced law in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, some years home only two months a year.
William was Attorney General under both James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, and finally the Anti-Masonic candidate for President. Elizabeth bore thirteen children, ten of whom survived childhood, and she wrote a book on flowers. After the death of a devout daughter, William began to move towards the promised “companionate” marriage. Learn more to buy “Marriage in the Early Republic” here for your bookshelf.
Suzanne Lebock wrote The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860 in 1986. Learn more to buy “Free Women of Petersburg” here for your bookshelf.
The Gospel Working Up
Beth Barton Schweiger wrote The Gospel Working Up: Progress and the Pulpit in Nineteenth Century Virginia was written by Beth Barton Schweiger in 2000. It is currently available online. Urban Methodists and Baptists in Virginia moved towards a vision of religious and social progress under the leadership of an increasingly educated, professionalized clergy. They were supported by enlarged membership, greater funding, denominational schools, publications, and bureaucracy. Their reach extended to defending slavery, evangelizing Confederate soldiers, temperance reform and foreign missions.
The growth in nineteenth century literacy among Methodists and Baptists was linked to the decline of camp meeting revivalism in Virginia. Following the loss of black membership, urban religion merged with social respectability, greater emphasis on education and promoting the moral guidance of women in a society rebuilding itself.Learn more to buy “The Gospel Working Up” here for your bookshelf.
Garnett Ryland wrote The Baptists of Virginia, 1699-1926 in 1955. It is out of print but available online new and used. Learn more to buy “Baptists of Virginia” here for your bookshelf.
William Warren Sweet wrote Virginia Methodism: A History in 1955. It is out of print but available new and used online. Learn more to buy “Virginia Methodism” here for your bookshelf.
William Warren Sweet wrote Religion in the Development of American Culture, 1765-1840 in 1952. It is out of print but available new and used online. Learn more to buy “Religion in the Development of American Culture” here for your bookshelf.
For book reviews at The Virginia Historian.com in this historical period addressing other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.