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On a Recent Cliometric Attempt to Resurrect the Myth of Antebellum Egalitarianism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Edward Pessen
Edward Pessen*
Affiliation:
Baruch College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
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Extract

In his recent essay in this journal on my writings on the “egalitarian myth,” Robert E. Gallman is kind enough to express admiration for “the scope of Pessen’s empirical undertaking, the skill and ingenuity with which he carried it out, his learning, and his grasp of his materials.” If praise from any source is sweet, praise from so admired a scholar as Professor Gallman is doubly sweet. Yet, “one may doubt,” he continues, that I have “in fact dealt a death blow to the egalitarian hypothesis.” Criticism, while not nearly so pleasing, alas, is to be expected, particularly for work such as mine that challenges a most influential, durable, and still popular thesis and challenges it on the basis of admittedly partial data. Scholarly disagreement on important issues is of course inevitable. For, as Peter M. Blau and Otis D. Duncan have observed, even collaborators in a joint study will interpret their data differently. I have taken pen in hand and availed myself of the opportunity graciously afforded me by a managing editor of Social Science History to publish my “observations on Gallman’s essay,” not because that essay criticizes my work but because a number of its references to my work are misleading and inaccurate.

Type
Comment and Debate
Information
Social Science History , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Winter 1979 , pp. 208 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1979 

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Footnotes

*

In preparing this paper I have benefited from my discussion of its themes with Samuel Richmond, master statistician and Dean of the Graduate School of Management of Vanderbilt University.

References

Notes

1 Gallman, Robert E., “Professor Pessen on the ‘Egalitarian Myth,’” Social Science History, 2 (Winter 1978), 194–207Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Gallman, “Egalitarian Myth.”)

2 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 194.Google Scholar

3 “Reasonable men,” they report, “may reasonably differ when jointly exploring rough terrain.” Blau, Peter M. and Duncan, Otis D., The American Occupational Structure (New York, 1967), viii.Google Scholar

4 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 194, 199, 200.Google Scholar All italics mine.

5 Pessen, Edward, Riches, Class, and Power Before the Civil War (Lexington, Mass., 1973), 46.Google Scholar

6 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 47, 52.Google Scholar

7 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 66, 68, 70.Google Scholar

8 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 61, 58.Google Scholar

9 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 199.Google Scholar

10 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 128.Google Scholar

11 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 64–65, 70-71, 96.Google Scholar

12 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 194.Google Scholar

13 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 302–303.Google Scholar

14 Pessen, Edward, Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics (Homewood, Ill., 1969), 57.Google Scholar

15 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 194, 199.Google Scholar

16 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 3–4, 32-33,40-45.Google Scholar

17 Pessen, , “Who Rules America? Power and Politics in the Democratic Era, 1825-1975,” Prologue, 9 (Spring 1977), 12–16.Google Scholar

18 Pessen, Edward, “The Egalitarian Myth and the American Social Reality: Wealth, Mobility, and Equality in the ‘Era of the Common Man,’” American Historical Review, 76 (October 1971), 999–1004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 198, 201, 202, 204, 206.Google Scholar

20 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 194–99.Google Scholar

21 In 1973, in common with other students of the distribution of wealth, I was not thinking in terms of mathematical formulae designed to establish the precise relationship between age levels or life cycles and wealthholding. For examples of the new approaches see Paglin, Morton, “The Measurement and Trend of Inequality: A Basic Revision,” American Economic Review, 65 (September 1975), 598–609Google Scholar; and Soltow, Lee, Men and Wealth in the United States, 1850-1870 (New Haven, 1975), 28, 70, 74.Google Scholar

22 Pessen, , “The Egalitarian Myth and the American Social Reality,” 1020.Google Scholar For agreement with my view that families or “persons in families” are the best “consumer unit” for such studies because the least prone to misrepresentation or fals e impression, see Paglin, , “The Measurement and Trend of Inequality,” 603.Google Scholar

23 Pessen, , “Who Rules America?” 16–17.Google Scholar

24 Pessen, , Riches, Class, and Power, 12–14, 89.Google Scholar Italics mine.

25 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 195.Google Scholar

26 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 195.Google Scholar Italics mine.

27 The age categories are “15-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70 and over.” Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 196.Google Scholar

28 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 197–98Google Scholar. It is a small point but Gallman’s phrase, “wealth actually held,” does not seem altogether apt. For the 95 percent figure he cites is drawn from his own 1969 conjecture, which rested in part on the figures in Moses Beach’s Wealthy Citizens pamphlets. See Gallman, , “Trends in the Nineteenth Century: Some Speculations,” in Soltow, Lee, ed., Six Papers on the Size Distribution of Wealth and Income (New York, 1969), 15.Google Scholar As I advised Gallman at the time, Beach’s undocumented figures did not justify scholarly credence. For a discussion of their weaknesses see Pessen, Edward, “Moses Beach Revisited: A Criticial Examination of His Wealthy Citizens Pamphlets,” Journal of American History, 58 (September 1971), 415–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 198.Google Scholar Italics mine.

30 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 198–199.Google Scholar

31 Soltow, , Men and Wealth 28, 70.Google Scholar

32 While I have no doubt that Gallman’s mathematics is impeccable in his calculation of the proportion of wealth his model assigns its richest 30 percent, he does not reveal precisely how he arrives at the figure.

33 In fairness to Soltow, when he speaks of the “shockingly low” proportions of property ownership in the middle decades of the nineteenth century or when he says “middle-wealth groups really held very little wealth in America,” it can perhaps be assumed that it is his awareness that the maldistributions in question were due to factors other than age that led him to make these statements. Soltow, , Men and Wealth, 175, 145.Google Scholar

34 I am not suggesting that this was an unvarying pattern. For example, if Philip Hone can be believed, his fortune in 1845, while still ample enough to place him among the upper one-half percent or the wealthholders—not the population—of New York City, was not nearly as great as it had been a decade earlier. Manuscript diary of Philip Hone, entry of January 4, 1845, 22: 356, Philip Hone papers in the New York Historical Society.

35 Pessen, Edward, “The Egalitarian Myth and the American Social Reality;” The Income Record, A List Giving the Taxable Income for the Year 1863 of the Residents of New York (New York, 1865)Google Scholar; Wright, Gavin, The Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets, and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1978)Google Scholar; Niemi, Albert W. Jr., “Inequality in the Distribution of Slave Wealth: the Cotton South and Other Agricultural Regions,” Journal of Economic History, 37 (September 1977), 747–753CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Randall, James G. and Donald, David, The Civil War and Reconstruction, rev. ed. (Lexington, Mass., 1969), 40Google Scholar; Laurie, Bruce, “‘Nothing on Compulsion’: Life Styles of Philadelphia Artisans, 1820-1850,” Labor History, 15 (Summer 1974), 337–366CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morris, Richard J., “Wealth Distribution in Salem Massachusetts, 1759-1799: The Impact of the Revolution and Independence,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, 114 (April 1978), 87–102Google Scholar; Faler, Paul, “Cultural Aspects of the Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts, Shoemakers and Industrial Morality, 1820-1860,” Labor History, 15 (Summer 1974), 367–394CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dawley, Alan, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge, Mass., 1976) 166–72Google Scholar; Hershberg, Theodore, Katz, Michael, Blumin, Stuart, Glaseo, Laurence, and Griffin, Clyde, “Occupation and Ethnicity in Five Nineteenth-Century Cities: A Collaborative Inquiry,” Historical Methods Newsletter, 1 (June 1974), 174–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Conzen, Kathleen Neils, Immigrant Milwaukee, 1836-1860: Accommodation and Community in a Frontier City (Cambridge, Mass., 1976)Google Scholar; Holt, Michael Fitzgibbons, Forging a Majority: The Formation of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh, 1848-1860 (New Haven, 1969), 28–29Google Scholar; Gutman, Herbert G. and Berlin, Ira, “Ethnicity and Southern Labor,” paper presented by Gutman to the Columbia University Seminar on the City (Fall 1976)Google Scholar; Lebergott, Stanley, Manpower in Economic Growth (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Williamson, Jeffrey G., “American Prices and Urban Inequality Since 1820,” Journal of Economic History, 36 (June 1976), 303–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coleman, Peter J., Debtors and Creditors in America: Insolvency, Imprisonment for Debt, and Bankruptcy, 1607-1900 (Madison, 1974), 267Google Scholar; and manuscript diary of Philip Hone, 24: 408.

36 Gallman, , “Trends in the Nineteenth Century,” 11.Google Scholar I shall refrain from cateloguing the studies of colonial, revolutionary, and post-revolutionary wealth distributions that I have most recently presented in “Who Rules America?” 10-12, n. 21 and n. 28.

37 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 204, n. 3.Google Scholar A recent devastating critique of the errors in the source on American income relied on by Gallman “suggests that existing scholarship [in which that study’s estimates] have been employed as integral components should be reexamined.” Gunderson, Gerald, “Southern Ante-Bellum Income Reconsidered,” Explorations in Economic History, 10 (Winter 1973), 151–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Gallman, , “Egalitarian Myth,” 199–203.Google Scholar

39 Gallman, “Egalitarian Myth,” 206, n. 15.

40 For reference to most of these well known sources see Pessen, , ed., Three Centuries of Social Mobility in America (Lexington, Mass., 1974), 306–7.Google Scholar See also Ingham, John N., The Iron Barons: A Social Analysis of An American Urban Elite, 1874-1965 (Westport, 1978)Google Scholar, which contradicts Gallman’s contentions about the alleged need of heirs to move to new industries if they hoped to “retain place.”

41 French, John Homer, Gazeteer of the State of New York (New York, 1860), 422.Google Scholar

42 Hurst, Harold, “The Elite Class of Newport, Rhode Island: 1830-1860,” New York University Ph.D. Dissertation 1975Google Scholar; McCoy, Alexandra, “The Political Affiliations of American Economic Elites: Wayne County, Michigan, 1844-1860, As a Test Case,” Wayne State University Ph.D. Dissertation 1965Google Scholar, Jones, Richard M. “Stonington Borough: A Connecticut Seaport in the Nineteenth Century,” City University of New York doctoral dissertation 1976Google Scholar; Danforth, Brian J., “The Influence of Socioeconomic Factors Upon Political Behavior: A Quantitative Look at New York City’s Merchants, 1828-1844,” New York University Ph.D. Dissertation 1974Google Scholar; Doherty, Robert, Society and Power: Five New England Towns, 1800-1860 (Amherst, 1977), 66, 69Google Scholar; Buettinger, Craig, “Economic Inequality in Early Chicago, 1840-1850,” Journal of Social History, 11 (Spring 1978), 413–418CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pessen, Riches, Class, and Power.

43 Thus he makes much of the evidence on very rich New Yorkers indicating that those who by mid-nineteenth century had increased their fortunes had nevertheless experienced “a relative deterioration of position,” because their assessed wealth had not gone up annually by 6.6 percent.

44 Rather than repeat what I have said elsewhere I would ask the reader to consult the sources I cite in Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics, rev. ed. (Homewood, 111., 1978), 77-100, 339-41; and in Pessen, , “Who Has Power in the Democratic Capitalistic Community? Reflections on Antebellum New York City,” New York History, 58 (April 1977), 129–155Google Scholar. With regard to one of these themes, in a letter of 11 January 1979, Professor William D. Rubinstein, who earlier had challenged my contention that the dimensions of American fortunes compared with those of great European holdings, now writes: “I would now be inclined to agree with you about the uniquely vast size of United States fortunes.” For our earlier exchange see American Historical Review, 77 (April 1972), 609-12.

45 In Chicago, for example, where by 1850 the richest one percent owned more than 50 percent of the wealth, about 75 percent of the men, along with their wives and children, were destitute; Buettinger, “Economic Inequality in Early Chicago, 1840-1850,” 414. In small New England towns, on the other hand, in which there were very few wealthy families, wealth distributions were less sharply skewed: while the poorest 40 percent were worth nothing, the richest 10 percent owned less than 40 percent of the wealth; Doherty, Society and Power, 48. See too Soltow, Lee, Patterns of Wealthholding in Wisconsin Since 1850 (Madison, 1971)Google Scholar; Bonner, James C., “Profile of a Late Ante-Bellum Community,” American Historical Review, 49 (July 1944), 663–680CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hurst, “The Elite Class of Newport [in this case for evidence on Providence, R.I.], 58, 76; and Campbell, Randolph B. and Lowe, Richard G., Wealth and Power in Antebellum Texas (College Station, Tex., 1977), 45, 47, 99, 129–130, 137Google Scholar.

46 Blumin, Stuart, The Urban Threshold: Growth and Change in a Nineteenth-Century American Community (Chicago, 1976), 205Google Scholar; Doherty, , Society and Power, 61Google Scholar; Jones, , “Stonington Borough,” 414–417Google Scholar; and Conzen, , Immigrant Milwaukee, 65–66, 108–109Google Scholar.

47 For an elaboration of this point see Pessen, Edward, “Social Mobility in American History: Some Brief Reflections,” Journal of Southern History, 45 (May 1979), 165–184CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Hope, Keith, The Analysis of Social Mobility: Methods and Approaches (Oxford, 1972), 8Google Scholar. See too Henretta, James, “The Study of Social Mobility: Ideological Assumptions and Cultural Bias,” labor History, 18 (Spring 1977), 165–178Google Scholar.

49 Pessen, “Who Rules America?” 16.