Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #941804 in Books
• Published on: 1960-01-01
• Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews

Unsatisfactory in Explaining Motivation of Reformers
In this work, Clifford Griffin explores the nature of moral stewardship in antebellum America. He seeks to explain why did some people want to tell others what to do and how did they go about it. He argues that a fear of change, a desire to help others, and self-interest (perhaps unconscious) united to motivate in America's antebellum trustees of morality. These trustees organized volunteer benevolent societies to act as agents of change in the culture at large. Through the societies, the trustees used both persuasion and legal coercion to conform the nation to their Protestant vision. While much of Griffin's analysis is useful, this work is unfortunately characterized by a negative bias against the moral stewards. As such, I tend to agree with Robert Abzug's assessment that the "emphasis on social control is...simply a value judgment cast in sociological jargon." In addition, Griffin fails to adequately explain the popular appeal of some of the reforms nor the conflict among the reformers over competing visions of Protestant America. Ultimately, I found this work unconvincing. Nonetheless, this work is very important in the historiography of antebellum reform and ought to be read by serious students. Readers interested in the underlying causes of antebellum reformed may find Robert Abzug's Cosmos Crumbling more satisfying.