Research Paper on:
Critically Reviewing Paul Johns's A Shopkeeper's Millenium

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change peoples lives, throughout the country and in particular in one city: Rochester, New York. (Thesis and central argument)Paul Johnson, noted historian, suggests that by studying New York, one can  understand the critical aspects of the changes which were occurring in the country at this time and how society and the American perspective was shaped and changed by the rapid  advance of the capitalist marketplace. So, why New York? Simple, states Paul Johnson. In the eighteen hundreds New York constructed one of mans greatest endeavors: the Eerie Canal. Sleepy little  Rochester was instantly transformed from a tiny settlement into a boom town, much like New Orleans and St. Louis would be. The only difference was, Rochesters canal was the first  inland boom town, with its economy growing steadily dependent on its grain industries. This meant that they not only produced the grain, but were able to ship the grain and  flour products eastward to feed the older more established communities. In doing so, then, Paul Johnson states, that Rochester became the model upon which many other communities who wished to  take advantage of some sort of commercial element, based themselves. Because of this, literally, towns were born overnight. With this phenomenon came a new brand of evangelical protestant piety which  would come as a result of the rapid expansion westward and the overnight development of commerce in growing townships. For the most part, Johnson presents the support for the idea  of social change and the reasons for those changes in fairly straight forward order. The rapid economic growth, the presence of a new generation of political entrepreneurs coming of  age in an era of social values, markedly different from those of their parents, gender role change, and the breakdown of the established party system are a few of the