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The Boundaries Of Youth: Labor, Maturity, And Coming Of Age In Early Nineteenth-Century New England, 1790-1850, Jane Fiegen Green

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project uses the experiences of young men and women to show how the language of maturity laid a foundation for the mythology of democratic capitalism in nineteenth-century America. Freed from the bounds of the household but left to the mercy of the emerging capitalist economy, young New Englanders struggled to reconcile the democratic ideals of work with the realities of class stratification. Expected to show their self-ownership through the performance of gender-defined employment, young men and women used their work experiences to display their maturity. Recognition as competent, mature adults required young people to find and demonstrate independence through …