The intent of this study was to analyze the geographical and social mobility patterns of Muncie's population within the 1850-1880 period utilizing the "new urban history" methodology. The subject of urban history has assumed a prominent position in the present curricula of many colleges and universities. A major component of urban history is titled "new urban history." Historians working under this rubic have adopted a research methodology distinct from that used in the past. This is a social science methodology which emphasizes the manipulation of quantitative data. It is this methodology which has distinguished the "new urban history" and the urban historians who utilize this approach.Stephan Thernstrom was one of the first "new urban historians" to use social science methodology in the study of large masses of urban dwellers. His purpose was to examine systematically the lives of those people who had previously gone unrecorded, but who, in the past, had automatically been included in commonly held assumptions about Americans. Thernstrom's study of the unskilled laborers in Newburyport, Massachusetts from 1850-1880 (Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century American City, 1850-1880) represented the initial effort in cataloguing the experiences of the common man in an urban setting.Thernstrom's use of social science methodology allowed him to discern the geographical and social mobility patterns of Newburyport's laborers. The results from his analysis did a great deal to dispell the myth that the "rags-to-riches" ideology of the nineteenth century was operative in American society for men regardless of their status.Since Thernstrom's study several other communities and their residents have been similarly examined in terms of geographical and social mobility patterns. The results have not always coincided with the Newburyport example. Dean Esslinger, in a study of the immigrant population of South Bend, Indiana from 1850-1880, (Immigrants and the City: Ethnicity and Mobility in a Nineteenth-Century Midwestern Community) discovered that significant upward social mobility occurred for this group. The development of South Bend as an industrial center did not block the opportunity for upward occupational and economic mobility among the city's foreign-born residents.I discovered in this dissertation that Muncie's population was very physically unstable, but that general upward social mobility was the reward for those who stayed. Less than one-half of Muncie's residents recorded on the federal census in 1850, 1860, and 1870 remained in Muncie for ten years. For the minority who did remain, however, improved status, both occupationally and economically, was the rule.One's place of birth had minimal affect on his ability to improve his job and economic status in Muncie. Muncie's foreignborn residents were able to enjoy nearly equal social mobility overtime as the native-born segment of the population. The unskilled foreign-born workers were the major exception to this pattern. They were not as successful in improving their status.Of major significance in the mobility studies of individual communities is the increased awareness which is gained of a broader, national perspective on population movement and status over time. More knowledge about the mobility patterns of America's urban dwellers leads to a more accurate determination of the nation's urban development and growth. The placement of Muncie in a broader urban context was one of the major accomplishments of this study. Direct comparisons were made between Muncie's mobility patterns and those of Newburyport, Massachusetts and South Bend, Indiana. The results show that Muncie was not unlike other communities in the same era.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/175196 |
| Date | January 1978 |
| Creators | Bracken, Alexander Elliot |
| Contributors | Hoover, Dwight W. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | xi, 267 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-in |
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