Becoming Bourgeois

Love, Kinship, and Power in Provincial France, 1670–1880

Inbunden, Engelska, 2015

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Becoming Bourgeois describes the fortunes of three French families in the municipality of Vannes, in Brittany—Galles, Jollivet, and Le Ridant—who rose to prominence in publishing, law, the military, public administration, and intellectual pursuits over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Revisiting complex issues of bourgeois class formation from the perspective of the interior lives of families, Christopher H. Johnson argues that the most durable and socially advantageous links forging bourgeois ascent were those of kinship. Economic success, though certainly derived from the virtues of hard work and intelligent management, was always underpinned by marriage strategies and the diligent intervention of influential family members. Johnson's examination of hundreds of personal letters opens up a whole world: the vicissitudes of courtship; the centrality of marriage; the depths of conjugal love; the routines of pregnancy and the drama of childbirth; the practices of child rearing and education; the powerful place of siblings; the role of kin in advancing the next generation; tragedy and deaths; the enormous contributions of women in all aspects of becoming bourgeois; and the pleasures of gathering together in intimate soirées, grand balls, country houses, and civic and political organizations. Family love bound it all together, and this is ultimately what this book is about, as four generations of rather ordinary provincial people capture our hearts.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2015-11-16
Mått155 x 235 x undefined mm
Vikt907 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor360
FörlagCornell University Press
ISBN9780801453984

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IntroductionCorrespondence and Its LimitsKinship, Class, Sociability, and the Interior History of the BourgeoisieLove, Interest, and the Sibling ArchipelagoGenderPART I. THE ASCENT (1670–1800)CHAPTER 1. The Way of PrintTalent and MarriageCultural CapitalPrinters, IntellectualsCHAPTER 2. Bourgeois de Vannes, Bourgeois de ParisKinsmen (and Women) to the Rescue: The Saga of Jean-Nicolas GallesKin and Connection in the Book TradeLove and Agony in ParisCHAPTER 3. The Revolutions of the GallesEconomic Establishment: Veuve Galles and the Articulation of PowerExpanding HorizonsCultural Leadership and Bourgeois AscentPolitical Establishment: Three Families MergeSurviving the French Revolution (If Not Childbed Fever)PART II. BOURGEOIS CULTURE (1800–1880)CHAPTER 4. The Sibling ArchipelagoTalented Royalists Accommodate BonaparteA New Generation and a Renewed PolityA Sibling CourtshipCousin Marriage and the Political Integration of Vannes's BourgeoisieCHAPTER 5. "Mon Adèle"Fulfillment and the FirstbornEstablishment: A Joint VenturePublic ServiceCHAPTER 6. Notre AdèleSettling InThe Great CrisisAffairs Military and DomesticLiving ClassCHAPTER 7. GuadeloupeCHAPTER 8. The Chosen: Educating RenéPont SalExile and Redemption: A Mother's WillFamily MattersCHAPTER 9. Into the WorldLa vie d'un polytechnicien bretonAunt Marie: Power and BetrayalThe Kinship EliteCareer and GuidanceWeathering Revolution, Again: Adèle, femme politiqueFulfillment: René WedCHAPTER 10. The Legacy: Bourgeois Nation Building and Civic LeadershipNation Building by KinshipCivic LeadershipThe National Stage: Combating le BretonismeBibliographical NotesIndex

Johnson's latest book, in my opinion, represents his supreme intellectual achievement. Since the turn of the century, his method of studying economic history—culling data, facts, and testimony from archives; synthesizing and interpreting them by means of theories of development and crisis—has been overtaken by studies of the writings on political economy.- Stephen Miller (H-France Review) The book chips away at our assumptions about a period and a class thatseem to epitomize 'separate spheres.' It convincingly demonstrates the importance of studying the inner life of a family—its taken-for-granteds, its habitus, and within the grid of kinship that provides the bedrock of class solidarity. It is also a delight to read.- Denise Z. Davidson (Journal of Interdisciplinary History) Following an interconnected set of families in the western French city of Vannes from the end of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth centuries, Christopher H. Johnson argues that kinship—especially marital strategies and the cultivation of intense familial affection—made the modern bourgeoisie.... Becoming Bourgeois is a model for combining social and cultural history. Johnson knows the traditional materials of social history—tax rolls, property transactions, and voter lists—inside and out. He is also fully in command of the état-civil and the details of the marriages, births, and deaths on the Jollivet-Galles family trees. His sympathetic and meticulous readings of the family correspondence make the archive of social and demographic history come to life.- Carol E. Harrison, University of South Carolina (Journal of Modern History) Becoming Bourgeois joins the vibrant scholarship on the history of emotions, particularly on love and family in the modern era. It is as engaging as it is significant for the history of modern France and of the European bourgeoisie by a preeminent scholar of the history of social class formation.(American Historical Review)