How Choice Fueled Panic
Philadelphians, Consumption, and the Panic of 1837
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12679375 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sean Patrick Adam (0009-0001-4505-8121, corresponding author), Sean Patrick Adams |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 761-789 |
| Publication date | 2011-05-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Enterprise & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1467-2227 • E-ISSN: 1467-2235 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/es/khr019 |
| OpenAlex | W4246677423 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
This essay examines the role of working-class consumers in public debates over the public regulation of food and fuel markets in Philadelphia in the years leading up to the Panic of 1837. As price spikes in these necessities inflamed the cries for state authorities to insure fair prices for these goods and to put an end to the growing scale and scope of free market capitalism, these pleas went unfulfilled. Instead, urban residents saw many of the longstanding measures designed to protect less affluent Americans from devastating price swings—regulated marketplaces for meat, traditional fuel markets, and the bread assize, for example—had eroded as policymakers offered a vision of a free market economy that pushed aside longstanding assumptions about the role of public officials in the marketplace itself
Aside · Capitalism · Consumption (sociology · Economics · Free market · Market economy · Panic · Political science · Scope (computer science · Sociology · State (computer science · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |