Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series From the patricians of the early republic to post-Reconstruction racial scientists, from fin de siecle progressivist social reformers to post-war sociologists, character, that curiously formable yet equally formidable -stuff, - has had a long and checkered history giving shape to the American national identity.

Bodies of Reform reconceives this pivotal category of nineteenth-century literature and culture by charting the development of the concept of -character- in the fictional genres, social reform movements, and political cultures of...

From the patricians of the early republic to post-Reconstruction racial scientists, from fin de siecle progressivist social reformers to post-war sociologists, character, that curiously formable yet equally formidable -stuff, - has had a long and checkered history giving shape to the American national identity.

Bodies of Reform reconceives this pivotal category of nineteenth-century literature and culture by charting the development of the concept of -character- in the fictional genres, social reform movements, and political cultures of the United States from the mid-nineteenth to the...

Since the Gilded Age, social scientists, middle-class reformers, and writers have left the comforts of their offices to -pass- as steel workers, coal miners, assembly-line laborers, waitresses, hoboes, and other working and poor people in an attempt to gain a fuller and more authentic understanding of the lives of the working class and the poor. In this first, sweeping study of undercover investigations of work and poverty in America, award-winning historian Mark Pittenger examines how intellectuals were shaped by their experiences with the poor, and how despite their sympathy toward...