Education and the Creation of Capital in the Early American Republic

“In this exciting, readable study, Nancy Beadie demonstrates that the development of public schools in the early national period of the US was tightly connected to the ‘market revolution’ prior to 1840. In a case study of schooling and the economy in the Genesee River region of New York, Beadie shows how civic, economic, and religious factors generated community, trust, and human capital at the same time that they created conflict and competition. Her book belongs to the tradition of fine community and regional studies by scholars such as Merle Curti and William Cronon. It will invigorate discussions about American education in the early nineteenth century.” —Carl F. Kaestle, Brown University
“In this extraordinary book, Nancy Beadie upends the historical literature by showing that the growth of American schooling in the early national period was about producing social capital more than human capital, that it was a creation of communities with only modest support from the state, that its roots were more rural than urban, and that these complex elements have come to shape our present school system.” —David F. Labaree, Stanford University School of Education
“Nancy Beadie's path-breaking book reveals the central role of schools and academies in creating social and political capital, as well as human capital, in the early republic. The struggle to establish common schools and academies forged alliances between banking, parental, religious, and political-party constituencies. Her careful and readable account is vital to our understanding of how rural education evolved in an era of community-building and religious fervor, when private venture schools and religious institutions both still received taxpayer support.” —Peter Lindert, University of California, Davis
“Why did Americans establish public schools? In a narrow case study with enormous implications, Nancy Beadie has sketched bold new answers to this age-old question. Schooling reflected as well as reinforced burgeoning social networks, which lay at the heart of America's broader economic and political transformation in the first half of the 19th century. Drawing deftly upon contemporary social theory as well as original archival research, Beadie’s book represents our first major reinterpretation of American educational history in the past two decades. A stunning achievement.” —Jonathan Zimmerman, New York University
"Recommended." -Choice
"...this work is educational history at its best..." -Dan R. Frost, American Historical Review
"Schooling, as Nancy Beadie shows, was decisive in the formation of economic, social, and cultural capital in the early republic. Education was equally important for individuals who achieved and made use of all three forms of capital." -Mary Kelley, The Journal of American History
"Nancy Beadie has written a truly remarkable monograph of broad significance." -Daniel Walker Howe, Oxford University and UCLA, History of Education Quarterly
"Beadie frames her book at the intersection of two historiographies – the transition to capitalism and education in the early republic – and makes an important contribution to each." -Johann Neem, Western Washington University, Social History:
...a nuanced analysis of the role that church and school played in the economic, social, and political development of western New York in the first half of the nineteenth century. The breadth of its research and the depth of its scholarship justifies the many years its author devoted to it.....this book will reward those read it closely from beginning to end." -William W. Cutler, I I I , Temple University, Journal of the Early Republic:
"This fine book is, at first glance, an extremely readable account of school creation in upstate New York." -John E. Murray, Rhodes College, Journal of Economic History:
"This is the history of education as it has seldom been practiced and the result is exciting and bracing. It rewards multiple readings." Ron Butchart, University of Georgia, Teachers College Record