"Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together"
Associations, Partisanship, and Culture in Philadelphia,
1775-1840 |
| |
| Albrecht Koschnik |
| 384 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 |
| 9 b&w illustrations, 10 tables |
| Cloth 978-0-8139-2648-3 • $45.00 |
| Jeffersonian
America |
 |
After examining American society in 1831-32, Alexis de Tocqueville
concluded, “In no country in the world has the principle of association
been more successfully used or applied to a greater multitude
of objects than in America.” What he failed to note, however,
was just how much experimentation and conflict, including partisan
conflict, had gone into the evolution of these institutions. In
"Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together": Associations,
Partisanship, and Culture in Philadelphia, 1775-1840, Albrecht
Koschnik examines voluntary associations in Philadelphia from
the Revolution into the 1830s, revealing how—in the absence
of mass political parties or a party system—these associations
served as incubators and organizational infrastructure for the
development of intense partisanship in the early republic. In
this regard they also played a central role in the creation of
a political public sphere, accompanied by competing visions of
what the public sphere ought to comprise.
Despite the central role voluntary associations played in the
emergence of a popular political culture in the early republic,
they have not figured prominently in the literature on partisan
politics and public life. Koschnik looks specifically at how Philadelphia
Federalists and Republicans used fraternal societies and militia
companies to mobilize partisans, and he charts the transformation
of voluntary action from a common partisan tool into a Federalist
domain of interlocking cultural, occupational, and historical
institutions after the War of 1812. In the long run, Federalists—a
political minority of less and less significance—shaped and
dominated the associational life of Philadelphia.
"Let a Common Interest Bind Us Together" lays
the groundwork for a new understanding of the political and cultural
history of the early American republic.
Albrecht Koschnik is Assistant Professor
in the Department of History at Florida State University.
