ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with a historical analysis of social character in Boston and Philadelphia and especially with how class authority and leader ship in the two cities was and still is related to the Puritan and Quaker ethics of their founders. It focuses on the commercial cities of Boston and Philadelphia, whose great differences in leadership and authority were far more likely to reflect differences in ideas and values. The fear of vanity, especially the "vanity of the word", which lies at the core of the Quaker ethic, is a problem faced by all scholars working on Philadelphia history. The book outlines the careers of two prominent American lawyers, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and John Graver Johnson, born within a month of each other in 1841.