I'm sensing a disturbance in the force. Only one post so far this week, which suggests either that everyone completely gets Trachtenberg, or we're all getting really really tired.
So I'll post a question. Can anyone please explain to me in a couple of sentences what "incorporation" is? I mean, I get incorporation as a business strategy to reduce liability and pool resources and all, but how does this help us understand cultural history? (Best answer gets 25 points toward discussion grade)
So....my post is out of the running for the best explanation?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHell I'll give it a shot...let me see....incorporation suggests becoming a part of something bigger/greater. In this case, incorporation means that every aspect of American life (politics, Westward movement, literature, etc.) became something bigger. It became a part of American culture and society during the late 1800s. The reactions against the incorporation would not come about until later when the progressives walk through that door.
ReplyDeleteI think Trachtenberg views incorporation in stark terms. Incorporation, if I understood correctly what I read is the process of how society became commercialized, regimented, and mechanized into a unified, business model. Incorporated is appropriate here, because it shows how all of these scattered, separate interests of social groups such as Native-American, African-American, white yeoman farmers, industrial labor, etc. get either wiped out during the Gilded Age or forced to conform and coalesce into a dominantly Anglo-Saxon, capitalist, imperialist entity. Incorporation is thus, for Trachtenberg, the melding of these separate conflicting interests into a unifying, national identity.
ReplyDeleteIn each chapter, Trachtenberg hashes out how the Gilded Age was defined by this unified business model. Native Americans forced into specific lands and specific properties, conforming to white, Anglo-Saxon standards. Labor was forced to work on a strict schedule with little opportunity for individual gain. Literature such as Melville's Billy Budd shows society as being an apparatus of the state, coerced into following a national Anglo-Saxon ideal. The White City shows itself as being a manufactured spectacle set to unify the nation. Business was seen as the ideal model for politics, hence the rise of the political machine in entities such as Tammany Hall.
All of these points reinforce America at this time as being melded into a unified, "streamlined" national identity as was created by WASP power.
In relations to incorporation, I feel that Trachtenberg had the same sentiments as Robert Wiebe's island communities. These island communities remained isolated from the urban centers and many within those island communities weren't in a hurry to see their islands get connected by railroads, telegraphs, and other new inventions and ideas. What Trachtenberg did was use the word incorporation to connect these island communities, thus making them a part of a larger body that becomes modern America rather than remain a smaller independent entity.
ReplyDeleteIncorporation as a business strategy affects how society is perceived and through this change the "way of life" becomes reorganized from the bottom up where the classes are unequal. Incorporation changes the very meaning of what "America" stands for.
ReplyDeleteI read incorporation as cultural and productive homogeneity achieved through absorption and appropriation of bundled and varied resources. The ethos that proponents of incorporation construct around their reasons for their actions attempt to justify any transgressions and rehabilitate their reputations henceforth.
ReplyDeleteAt a base level incorporation (argues Trachtenberg)is about change and reorganization. I agree with the definitions above as integrating multiple areas/arenas under a single concept/notion and thereby creating a hierarchy. Thus there are those on the top and those on the bottom. There is conflict in incorporation and this may be why Trachtenberg tends to use dialectics throughout, contrasting one group with another. My question is, what are all these disparate groups being incorporated under? At times I thought it was the capitalist system. At other times I thought perhaps "the nation." Perhaps Trachtenberg is arguing the capitalist system IS the national identity - although he doesn't necessarily like that this is where the nation has gone. Just some thoughts.
ReplyDeleteRoger