In the bustling cities of the mid-nineteenth-century Northeast, young
male clerks working in commercial offices and stores were on the make,
persistently seeking wealth, respect, and self-gratification. Yet these
strivers and "counter jumpers" discovered that claiming the identities
of independent men--while making sense of a volatile capitalist economy
and fluid urban society--was fraught with uncertainty.
In On the Make, Brian P. Luskey illuminates at once the power of the
ideology of self-making and the important contests over the meanings of
respectability, manhood, and citizenship that helped to determine who
clerks were and who they would become. Drawing from a rich array of
archival materials, including clerks' diaries, newspapers, credit
reports, census data, advice literature, and fiction, Luskey argues that
a better understanding of clerks and clerking helps make sense of the
culture of capitalism and the society it shaped in this pivotal era.