Listening to Nineteenth-Century America

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Technology, Acoustics & Sound, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology
Cover of the book Listening to Nineteenth-Century America by Mark M. Smith, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Mark M. Smith ISBN: 9781469625560
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: December 1, 2015
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Mark M. Smith
ISBN: 9781469625560
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: December 1, 2015
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

Arguing for the importance of the aural dimension of history, Mark M. Smith contends that to understand what it meant to be northern or southern, slave or free--to understand sectionalism and the attitudes toward modernity that led to the Civil War--we must consider how antebellum Americans comprehended the sounds and silences they heard.

Smith explores how northerners and southerners perceived the sounds associated with antebellum developments including the market revolution, industrialization, westward expansion, and abolitionism. In northern modernization, southern slaveholders heard the noise of the mob, the din of industrialism, and threats to what they considered their quiet, orderly way of life; in southern slavery, northern abolitionists and capitalists heard the screams of enslaved labor, the silence of oppression, and signals of premodernity that threatened their vision of the American future. Sectional consciousness was profoundly influenced by the sounds people attributed to their regions. And as sectionalism hardened into fierce antagonism, it propelled the nation toward its most earsplitting conflict, the Civil War.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Arguing for the importance of the aural dimension of history, Mark M. Smith contends that to understand what it meant to be northern or southern, slave or free--to understand sectionalism and the attitudes toward modernity that led to the Civil War--we must consider how antebellum Americans comprehended the sounds and silences they heard.

Smith explores how northerners and southerners perceived the sounds associated with antebellum developments including the market revolution, industrialization, westward expansion, and abolitionism. In northern modernization, southern slaveholders heard the noise of the mob, the din of industrialism, and threats to what they considered their quiet, orderly way of life; in southern slavery, northern abolitionists and capitalists heard the screams of enslaved labor, the silence of oppression, and signals of premodernity that threatened their vision of the American future. Sectional consciousness was profoundly influenced by the sounds people attributed to their regions. And as sectionalism hardened into fierce antagonism, it propelled the nation toward its most earsplitting conflict, the Civil War.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book Snowbird Gravy and Dishpan Pie by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book The Poetics of Aristotle by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Cornwallis by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Judge Thomas Ruffin and the Shadows of Southern History by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book The Gymnasium of Virtue by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Nature's Civil War by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book White Enough to Be American? by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Zeb Vance by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Framing Chief Leschi by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book At the Precipice by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Censoring Racial Ridicule by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Whitman's Poetry of the Body by Mark M. Smith
Cover of the book Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta by Mark M. Smith
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy