Reminiscent of the lamps that lit the streets of old U. S. cities, “Capitalism By Gaslight: Illuminating the Economy of Nineteenth-Century America,” exposes the shadowy transactions that helped to shape the nation’s economy.

Brian Luskey, associate professor of history at West Virginia University, edited the essay collection along with his co-editor Wendy Woloson, who teaches history at Rutgers University-Camden. The University of Pennsylvania Press published the volume.

While powerful businessmen and bankers have occupied the attention of many historians of the era, the essays in this collection examine the prostitutes, dealers in used goods, mock auctioneers, illegal slavers, traffickers in stolen horses, emigrant runners, pilfering dockworkers, and other ordinary people who, through their economic activities, helped to make capitalism, too.

“Their transactions, business strategies, and ways of thinking about the morality of the market should be understood as part of capitalism’s history, rather than having it be marginalized in favor of the more well-known stories of the most successful and powerful citizens,” Luskey said.

“Our essayists have dug deeply into archival records around the country to unearth new stories about petty proprietors that offer vital new perspectives on our economic past,” Luskey said. “I hope ‘Capitalism by Gaslight’ helps readers understand how ordinary people tried to strive and survive through their economic activities in the nineteenth century.”

-WVU-

dr/05/21/2015

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