A sense of their duty: middle-class formation in Victorian Ontario towns

Industrial change, the expansion of government at all levels, and population growth all contributed to profound alterations in Ontario's social structure between the 1850s and the 1890s. The changing environment created new opportunities, new wealth, and new authority. In urbanizing Ontario, an identifiable and self-identified middle class emerged between the idle rich and the perennial working class. Using the towns of Galt and Goderich as case studies, Andrew Holman shows how middle-class identities were formed at work. He shows how businessmen, professionals, and white-collar workers developed a new sense of authority that extended beyond the workplace. As local electors, members of voluntary associations and reform societies, and breadwinners, middle-class men set standards of proper and expected behavior for themselves and others, standards for respectable behavior that continued to enjoy currency and relevance throughout the twentieth century. What did it mean to be middle class in late nineteenth-century Ontario? How did the members of the middle class define themselves? Though simple, these questions have escaped the attention of social historians in recent writing about Canada. The Victorian middle class, referred to as the backbone of economic change, the motor of political reform, and the source of one set of moral standards, has eluded systematic study. A Sense of Their Duty corrects this and reconstructs the identities that middle-class Victorians made for themselves in an era of economic change.Industrial change, the expansion of government at all levels, and population growth all contributed to profound alterations in Ontario's social structure between the 1850s and the 1890s. The changing environment created new opportunities, new wealth, and new authority. In urbanizing Ontario, an identifiable and self-identified middle class emerged between the idle rich and the perennial working class.Using the towns of Gait and Goderich as case studies, Andrew Holman shows how middle-class identities were formed at work. He shows how businessmen, professionals, and white-collar workers developed a new sense of authority that extended beyond the workplace. These men set standards of proper and expected behaviour for themselves and others, standards for respectable behaviour that continued to enjoy currency and relevance throughout the twentieth century. MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Contents 6 Tables, Maps, and Illustrations 8 Preface 10 Illustrations 14 Prologue: Approaching the Victorian Middle Class in Canadian History 26 PART ONE: WORK, AUTHORITY, AND THE MIDDLE CLASS IN VICTORIAN ONTARIO 42 1 Boosters, Bluster, and Bonding: Enterprise and Middle-Class Formation 51 2 Honour and Authority: The Professional Middle Class 73 3 "Getting There": Situating White-Collar Workers 98 PART TWO: ERECTING A MORAL ORDER, DEVELOPING CLASS COMMUNITY 120 4 Casting Society: Voluntary Organizations and the Development of Class Community 128 5 A Community Concern: Victorian Temperance Reform 153 6 Producing and Reproducing the Middle-Class "Self" 173 Epilogue 193 Notes 198 Bibliography 238 Index 262 A 262 B 262 C 262 D 263 E 263 F 263 G 263 H 263 I 264 J 264 K 264 L 264 M 264 N 264 O 264 P 264 Q 265 R 265 S 265 T 265 U 265 V 265 W 265 Y 266 "Using the towns of Galt and Goderich as case studies, Andrew Holman shows how population growth, industrial change, and the expansion of government contributed to profound changes to Ontario's social structure between the 1850s and the 1890s with an identifiable and self-identified middle class emerging between the idle rich and the working class. Businessmen, professionals, and white-collar workers developed a new sense of authority that extended beyond the workplace, and local electors, breadwinners, and members of voluntary associations and reform societies set middle class standards of behavior that enjoyed currency and relevance throughout the twentieth century."--Jacket