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Democracy in Cincinnati: civic virtue and three generations of urban historians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2009

John D. Fairfield
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Abstract

The tension between civic virtue and self-interest has been a central theme of three generations of American urban historians. Indeed these historians have played an important role in the struggle to build America's civic culture. Critically examining their cities in light of American ideals, they have embraced the responsibilities of citizenship and kept alive the spirit of civic virtue. This essay examines democracy in Cincinnati through the work of these urban historians and argues that Americans have dispensed with civic virtue at their own peril. The democratization of the republican ideal of citizenship remains the great, unfinished task of American civilization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , August 1997 , pp. 200 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1 Caveat lector: the author has published a volume in one of these series. The author has also served as 1996–97 programme director for one of these seminars.

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7 I have organized this argument around these three because of their common focus on mid-nineteenth-century Cincinnati, their particular emphasis on citizenship, and their fairly recent publication or republication. This argument might well include discussions, or more extended discussions, of many more historians of Cincinnati including Wade, Ross, R. Fairbanks, H. Shapiro and others. Considerations of space as well as coverage in other reviews, either already published or in preparation, have caused me to exclude or limit discussion of these historians.

8 Like D. Aaron (who is discussed below), A. Schlesinger, Sr, R. Wade and other pioneers of urban history ‘tied economic and cultural progress inextricably to the civic and political realms’: Z. Miller, ‘The crisis of civic and political virtue: urban history, urban life and the new understanding of the city’, paper presented at Richard C. Wade Retirement Conference (copy in possession of author).

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