Class Distinctions.

One of the first qualities European visitors to antebellum America noticed was the natives' fierce belief in democracy and equality. Another was that most Americans were constantly on the move: the English writer Harriet Martineau commented that asking the average American about the state of his wellbeing was likely to produce the answer "moving, Sir." It is true that, by comparison to Europe, America was a relatively egalitarian society: there were no aristocratic titles, and the idea of the "self-made man" was a cherished one. Everyone, it was widely held, could achieve prosperity with the application of sufficient effort and "Yankee shrewdness." The American public was enchanted with Horatio Alger's rags-to-riches stories, which were published throughout the period. But the truth is a bit more complex. By the eve of the Civil War inequalities in wealth had become pronounced in American...