Habits of the Heartland

C. Macgregor Lyn

Description

"So, how do Americans in a small town make community today? This book argues that there is more than one answer, and that despite the continued importance of small-town stuff traditionally associated with face-to-face communities, it makes no sense to think that contemporary technological, economic, and cultural shifts have had no impact on the ways Americans practice community life. Instead, I found that different Viroquans took different approaches to making community that reflected different confluences of moral logics-their senses of obligation to themselves, to their families, to Viroqua, and to the world beyond it, and about the importance of exercising personal agency. The biggest surprise was that these ideas about obligation and agency, and specifically about the degree to which it was necessary or good to try to bring one's life into precise conformance with a set of larger goals, turned out to have replaced more traditional markers of social belonging like occupation and ethnicity, in separating Viroquans into social groups."-from Habits of the HeartlandAlthough most Americans no longer live in small towns, images of small-town life, and particularly of the mutual support and neighborliness to be found in such places, remain powerful in our culture. In Habits of the Heartland, Lyn C. Macgregor investigates how the residents of Viroqua, Wisconsin, population 4,355, create a small-town community together. Macgregor lived in Viroqua for nearly two years. During that time she gathered data in public places, attended meetings, volunteered for civic organizations, talked to residents in their workplaces and homes, and worked as a bartender at the local American Legion post.Viroqua has all the outward hallmarks of the idealized American town; the kind of place where local merchants still occupy the shops on Main Street and everyone knows everyone else. On closer examination, one finds that the town contains three largely separate social groups: Alternatives, Main Streeters, and Regulars. These categories are not based on race or ethnic origins. Rather, social distinctions in Viroqua are based ultimately on residents' ideas about what a community is and why it matters.These ideas both reflect and shape their choices as consumers, whether at the grocery store, as parents of school-age children, or in the voting booth. Living with-and listening to-the town's residents taught Macgregor that while traditional ideas about "community," especially as it was connected with living in a small town, still provided an important organizing logic for peoples' lives, there were a variety of ways to understand and create community.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Local history
• Types of rural communities
• Midwestern United States
• History of the Americas
• Human geography
• Wisconsin

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801458972
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Habits of the Heartland

Habits of the Heartland

SmallTown Life in Modern America

Lyn C. Macgregor

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2010 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2010 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2010 Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Macgregor, Lyn Christine, 1973–  Habits of the heartland : smalltown life in modern America / Lyn C. Macgregor.  p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801448362 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 9780801476433 (pbk. : alk. paper)  1. Viroqua (Wis.)—Social life and customs. 2. Viroqua (Wis.)— Commerce—Social aspects. 3. Community life—Wisconsin—Viroqua. 4. City and town life—Wisconsin—Viroqua. I. Title. F589.V57M33 2010 977.5'73—dc22 2009045343

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing Paperback printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to the people of Viroqua

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Contents

Part I. Cultures of Community

1. Three Halloweens, Three Viroquas

2. The Alternatives: A Kinder, Gentler Counterculture

3. The Main Streeters: The Busiest People in Town

4. The Regulars: Keeping Things Simple

5. Playing in the Same Sandbox?

Part II. Commerce, Consumption, and Community in Viroqua

6. Beneficent Enterprise and Viroquan Exceptionalism

7. Retail Morality

8. Consumption and Belonging in Viroqua

ix

1

13 17 43 73 101 129

147 153 174 201

v i i i C o n t e n t s

Epilogue and Conclusion

Appendix: Study Methods References Index

227 237 253 261

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been written were it not for William Sewell Sr., who appeared in my office one day in 1998 with a map of Wisconsin, spread the map out on my desk, and began circling towns he knew had been included in surveys conducted by members of the University of Wis consin’s sociology and rural sociology departments in the 1940s. He had hoped for a long time, he said, that an ethnographer would someday re turn to one of these towns and conduct a community study. We talked about the possibility of such a project for a while, and when he turned to go I reminded him to take his map. “Hold on to it,” he said. I had not ad equately thanked Bill for entrusting me with this project before he passed away in 2001, and frankly, I am not sure I could have found any way to do so had I had more time. It turned out that there were a number of researchers who studied Vi roqua before I did, and I owe them a tremendous debt: Arthur Vidich, Virginia Vidich, Arnold Strickon, Lynne Heasley, Jacob Hundt, and Amy Lake. Robert Jackall and Herbert Lewis alerted me to the existence of the