Yankee Merchants and the Making of the Urban West
The Rise and Fall of Antebellum St Louis

How conflict sparked by the debate over the future of slavery remade the urban West.

Jeffrey S. Adler (Author)

9780521412841, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 September 1991

286 pages
23.8 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.525 kg

"Adler has written a gem of a book that combines a theoretical base with a richly textured interpretation of the 'rise and fall' of antebellum St. Louis as the metropolis of the West." David R. Meyer, Business History Review

By the early 1850s, St Louis was one of the fastest-growing cities in America. In this book, Jeffrey Adler analyzes the forces that determined the role of western cities in the national economy. He devotes particular attention to the ways in which Yankee merchants forged ties that linked St Louis to the New York and Boston markets. Northeastern businessmen fuelled the ascent of St Louis and made the city a Yankee colony in the West. During the mid-1850s powerful political and cultural forces altered the sources of urban growth in the West. As a result, the economy of St Louis collapsed. Yankee merchants stopped migrating to the city and ceased investing in local businesses. This book demonstrates that the sectional crisis abruptly transformed St Louis's role in the national economy, redirecting the flow of capital and migrants away from St. Louis and toward a smaller western city - Chicago.

Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. 'These Yankee notions will not suit Missouri'
3. Savagedom, destiny, and the isothermal zodiac
4. Yankee newcomers and prosperity
5. 'The offspring of the East'
6. A border city in an age of sectionalism
7. Rebirth
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]