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Arising out of the context of the re-configuration of Europe, new perspectives are applied by the authors of this volume to the process of nation-building in the United States. By focusing on a variety of public celebrations and festivities from the Revolution to the early twentieth century, the formative period of American national identity, the authors reveal the complex interrelationships between collective identities on the local, regional, and national level which, over time, shaped the peculiar character of American nationalism.
This volume combines vivid descriptions of various public celebrations with a sophisticated methodological and theoretical approach.
List of contents
Editors' Preface
Introduction Geneviève Fabre and
Jürgen Heideking Chapter 1. Celebrating the Constitution: The Federal Processions of 1788 and the Emergence of a Republican Festive Culture in the United States
Jürgen Heideking Chapter 2. The Nation as a Spectacle: The Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia, 1788
Dietmar Schloss Chapter 3. Revolutionary Festivals and Political Violence: The Impact of the French Revolution in America
Marie-Jeanne Rossignol Chapter 4. From Celebrating Victory to Celebrating the Nation: The War of 1812 and American National Identity
Michael Wala Chapter 5. Performing Freedom: Negro Election Celebrations as Political and Intellectual Resistance in New England, 1740-1850
Geneviève Fabre Chapter 6. Italian Americans and Columbus Day: A Quest for Consensus between National and Group Identities, 1840-1910
Bénédicte Deschamps Chapter 7. "... to divide their love": Celebrating Frenchness and Americanization in San Francisco, 1850-1909
Annick Foucrier Chapter 8. Charity on Parade: Chicago's Jews and the Construction of Ethnic and Civic "Gemeinschaft in the 1860s
Tobias Brinkmann Chapter 9. Demonstrating the Values of 'Gemütlichkeit' and 'Cultur': The Festivals of German Americans in Milwaukee, 1870-1910
Heike Bungert Chapter 10. Halloween - A Re-invented Holiday: Celebrating White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Middle-Class America
Adrien Lherm Chapter 11. Climate, Identity and Winter Carnivals in North America
Bernard Mergen Chapter 12. Creating and Instrumentalizing Nationalism: The Celebration of National Reunion in the Peace Jubilees of 1898
Fabian Hilfrich Chapter 13. Historical Bonding with an Expiring Heritage: Revisiting the Plymouth Tercentenary Festivities of 1920-21
Udo Hebel List of Contributors
Index
About the author
Kai Dreisbach is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Anglo-American History, University of Cologne.
Summary
This volume combines vivid descriptions of various public celebrations with a sophisticated methodological and theoretical approach.
Additional text
"What makes for such rich and rewarding reading here is that these interdisciplinary essays, generally of high quality, take what might othrwise be a narrowly focused collection ... and yield broad theoretical insights and implications." · The Journal of American History
"... a broad sweep with fine references, notes and a book-wise index worth a high acquisition cost." · Society for German-American Studies Newsletter
