ABSTRACT
As is true of other Tocquevillean social concepts, this one too owes more to the deductive flair of its originator than to the facts of American economic life. In view of the paucity of contemporary evidence underly ing the belief in antebellum intragenerational economic mobility, the purpose of this chapter is to subject the thesis to a detailed empirical test, based primarily on data from New York City and Boston and, to a lesser extent, from Brooklyn.3 Stuart Blumin's recent study indicates that in Philadelphia upward economic mobility was slight during the period 1820 to 1860 and that the little vertical mobility in evidence was confined chiefly to moves between contiguous rather than widely separated levels
well as the wealthiest. Boston had a far smaller population, yet was vitally important to New England as its businessmen faced up to the challenge posed by its relative decline as an entrepot by vigorous involvement in transportation and manufacturing projects. Brooklyn's special relationship to and dependence on its great neighbor were unique among cities of the second rank, but its rapid growth both in population and enterprise was typical of the recent experience of other bustling small towns. Above all, these cities met the fundamental requirement for an investigation of the rise and fall of fortunes. They all contained inordinately large numbers of wealthy men.
