Beschrijving
People living in the nineteenth-century United States saw shocking upheavals in both the economy and in ideas of selfhood in a commercial society. Narratives such as Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches tales allured Americans with visions of financial success, while events such as the Panics of 8 9, 837, 857, and 8 5 threatened them with sudden and devastating financial failure. The antebellum period’s \
