The Web of Progress: Private Values and Public Styles in Boston and Charleston, 1828-1843 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS175 ary transformation of social relations in the postwar South. On one point, however, historians on both sides of the debate express substantial agreement : the old master class emerged from the Civil War as the reactionary ally ofdie dominant Northern middle class. This relationship is a complex one, and it is far from being thoroughly understood. But the widening perception of such a relationship (posed by Woodward in Reunion and Reaction [1951])—suggesting as it does fresh avenues of inquiry— represents a welcome advance in the study ofthe Civil War and the meaning ofemancipation. Louis S. Gerteis University of Missouri, St. Louis The Web of Progress: Private Values and Public Styles in Boston and Charleston, 1828-1843. By William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Pp. xvi, 334. $29.95.) This is a stimulating and original exploration ofthe culture and economy of Boston and Charleston—the quintessential New England and Southeastern cities ofdie antebellum era. Itfocuses tightly on diese two cities during a fifteen-year period, but it is the kind of intensive study that transcends the apparently narrow limits ofplace and time to offer numerous fresh and provocative insights into the nature of North and Soudi. The authors provide new fuel for those who see sectional conflict rooted in two different types of society. Boston represents the vigorous entrepreneurial capitalism of the North. Charleston is interpreted not as an anticapitalist or antibourgeois society, but one where effective enterprise and urban growth were compromised by the commitment to die plantation economy and to slavery. Why did Boston become the hub city for a region bustling with factories, railroads, and towns whereas Charleston remained a static entrepot for a slowly declining hinterland ofcotton and rice plantations? Both were prosperous colonial seaports, and by 1830 they ranked fourth and sixth respectively among cities of the nation. Boston's harbor was superior, and there were odier advantages of geography and resources which die Peases concede . But they are more interested in die human response to these environmental "givens." It is the interplay between the private values ofa city's leaders and die public style of economic and political behavior that the authors examine. The intricate web of progress consisted of a multitude of threads, and each is examined in one setting and then compared with the odier. This can easily lead to dichotomous contrasts that may distort fundamental similarities , but the treatment is subtle and our understanding of each city is sharpened by die contrasts. The audiors begin by comparing the economic styles of each city as they responded to the challenge of New York's ascendence in the 1820s, to die national cycle of boom and bust diat 176CIVIL WAR HISTORY followed, and to local adversities. With mostly private capital and its own entrepreneurial know-how, Boston became transportation hub and financial center to a highly integrated network of industrial centers. Railroads brought cotton and other raw materials to the factories ofsatellite cities and returned with manufactured goods that Boston ships carried to the markets ofthe world. Charleston also responded boldly to the railroad age by building the longest line in the world at that time, but it crossed a virtual wilderness of depleted soil and thin population to tap the Savannah River cotton trade at Hamburg. It never bridged the river and at the other end hostile Charlestonians managed to block the road from making the vital connection to the city wharves—adding a costly surcharge for drayage. Instead of a hub, Charleston sought to revive its former role as a hinge between the plantations and the ports ofEurope. Here the authors recognize the determining force of the hinterlands each city served, but their emphasis is on how Boston exploited its richer opportunities for innovation and economic progress while Charleston pursued a doomed dream from the past. Explaining Charleston's failure is more troublesome than explaining Boston's success. Charleston's economic problems were the sum of a multitude of particular shortcomings, from the refusal to allow the railroad to come to the wharves to the inability of the city to provide efficient services. All were rooted in a deeper layer ofvalues and social...