Education and the Creation of Capital in the Early American Republic

This book argues that schools were a driving force in the formation of social, political, and financial capital during the market revolution and capitalist transition of the early republican era. Grounded in an intensive study of schooling in the Genesee Valley region of upstate New York, it traces early sources of funding and support for education (including common schools and various forms of higher schooling) to their roots in different social and economic networks and trade and credit relations. It then interprets that story in the context of other major developments in early American social, political, and economic history, such as the shift from agricultural to non-agricultural production, the integration of rural economies into translocal capitalist markets, the organization of the Second Great Awakening, the transformation of patriarchy, the expansion of white male suffrage, the emergence of the Secondary American Party System, and the formation of the modern liberal state.

Part I. Education and Social Capital Formation: 1. Introduction - the place of schooling in a transforming political economy; 2. Creating social capital - norms of school and community building; 3. A matter of trust - neighbors and strangers; 4. Discipline - evangelicalism as an educational movement; 5. Bonding and bridging - the Methodist economy; 6. Development - evangelicalism and capital formation; Part II. Schools as Agencies of Politicization: 7. Between markets and the state - venture schools and academies; 8. Political economies of schooling - academies and common schools; 9. Education and civic engagement - schools and politics; 10. Diffusing intelligence - education and formation of the liberal state; 11. Denominational politics and institution-building; 12. Education and coalition building; Part III. Education and Economic Transformation: 13. Education as an object of capital investment; 14. Varieties of trust - education and economic competition; 15. Controlling capital - education and the politics of economic change; 16. Success - education and the culture of the market; 17. Panic - education and the discipline of the market; 18. Friends - learning the value of trust; Conclusion: education and the creation of capital; Appendix.

Nancy Beadie is a professor and historian of education in the area of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is a co-editor of Chartered Schools: Two Hundred Years of Independent Academies, 1727–1925 (2002). She has twice received the History of Education Society's prize for best article published in a refereed journal, and her articles have appeared in numerous journals, including Social Science History, History of Education Quarterly, History of Education, and Paedagogica Historica.