Class and Conflict in the Nineteenth Century

ATQ announces a special issue for 2008 on class and conflict in nineteenth-century American communities and culture. Since the arrival of the earliest European settlers fleeing rigid class systems in Europe, our national myth claims this country as a classless society, yet social stratification has always been a powerful force in American life. Frequently determined by economic factors such as those that created the wage-labor class during the Industrial Revolution, it is also influenced by social issues such as race, gender, ethnicity, regional affiliation, and education. Our continuing obsession with class is evidenced in drama and films such as the recent Age of Innocence and Gangs of New York. A “mobile society,” we believe in the fluidity of our class structures; the desire to rise above one’s class in the nineteenth century led to massive regional demographic changes. The concept of “Manifest Destiny” pulled émigrés westward in search of better land opportunities, a national move from agrarian to industrial economies caused many families to leave Appalachia and the Mountain South in search of wage-paying jobs, and violence and racial oppression instigated migrations from the South. Money, education, and family were among the factors affecting or denying fluidity of class stratification.

Class conflicts reached into every segment of life—into politics, social institutions, the family, and private lives. Articles might explore but are not limited to the following topics:

· Economic caste systems; rags-to-riches stories; inherited wealth and class
· The effects of class on health care, food, employment, education, and leisure
· Markers of class—dialect, clothing, housing, personal appearance, race, and ethnicity
· Manifestations of class oppression: alienation, isolation, and internalized shame
· Class and family, religious practice, race and/or ethnicity, and gender
· Antebellum and/or Postbellum class structures in the South
· The Mountain South; class stratification within isolated, rural communities
· Rise of the “Professional Class”
· The outlaw class
· Rural-to-urban migrations
· Portrayals of class in regional music, art, and literature
· Contemporary portrayals of nineteenth-class class issues
· Folkloric representations of class

ATQ welcomes submissions from scholars in a variety of disciplines, including literary studies, sociology, history, women’s studies, performance studies, ethnomusicology, law, medicine, film/media studies, architecture/urban design, business, and education. Interdisciplinary approaches and international contributions are especially welcome. ATQ will have the capacity to reproduce images for this special issue. Please submit manuscripts (3,000 to 7,500 words, following the MLA Handbook, 6th ed., 2003) by 15 April 2008. All submissions must be accompanied by sufficient return postage.

Address manuscripts and inquiries to:
Claire Reynolds, ATQ Special Issue Editor—2008
Department of English, Independence Hall
60 Upper College Road
University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881.