The first reader question:
Hello,
What are some of the primary differences, culturally and historically, between Camden and Northeast Harbor? Particularly in regard to the “summer folk”.
Regards.
The second reader question:
In his book “Old Money”, Nelson Aldrich observed that traditional, patrician New England families had more children than typical upper-middle or middle class families. He attributed this to the former’s psychological security of their family’s place in society and a resulting lack of anxiety about ensuring their children’s future “success”, compared to the latter’s psychological insecurity and their need to concentrate limited resources on fewer children, thus hopefully ensuring greater chances of “success” (commonly defined as material and social security).
Do your readers think this analysis was ever true, and if so, does it remain true today?
Nelson apparently never met an Irish Catholic family.
ReplyDeleteProbably not true then. Certainly not true now.
Nelson Aldrich met every kind of family.
DeletePerhaps the notice frequently posted by employers, “No Irish Need Apply,” stems from fears of employers being saddled with psychologically insecure workers.
DeleteThe Irish were/are not psychologically insecure. We all know that. If anything they became more secure with their immigrant status than other new arrivals to these shores. After all they held a huge advantage over other newcomers, they spoke the language. Hence they snapped up all the guaranteed paycheck jobs; policemen, firemen, school teachers, the like.
DeleteIt was other groups, like the Italians, who more had to fend for themselves. And they did. Italians started their own businesses. The term “Italian contractor” became almost stereotypical. They securely fostered large families. And they became successful even if there was no one at the local post office who spoke Italian.
It’s always a team effort. By the immigration wave of the early 1900’s the Anglo/Old Yankees ran the banks, manufacturing, large retail, had started the private school network and the country clubs. Going forth in the 20th Century the Irish had their role. Italians built houses, stores and roads. They weren’t much for golf. But they liked to buy big boats.
DeleteMr Aldrich must have met every kind of family. We wonder, however, how much time he spent, surrounded by scuffling and sometimes screeching knee high redheads bouncing around the kitchen table of an Irish Catholic family.
DeleteYou bring up an interesting point. Thank you. Low birth rates are today par for the course throughout the Western world, as you know. Japan, of course, and China are also facing this demographic development. Looking back locally, it doesn’t seem those from the auld sod or our paesan friends suffered any psychological insecurity about begetting large families.
ReplyDelete#2: Today among the professional classes having four or more kids is usually a sign that you had material security early in adulthood, often through family, and you can afford a nanny or a stay-at-home parent.
ReplyDeleteMost folks who make their own way become financially secure later, marry later, have kids later, and tend to have smaller families as a result.
Large families are a way to ensure that there is labor available for work on the farm. It is also insurance of continued lineage where there is high infant mortality.
DeleteThank you all for crossing Old Money off my reading list! Ok, back to Proust.
ReplyDeleteNelson Aldrich's OLD MONEY is a superb piece of serious social history, though it's probably a little too complex and dense for someone who'd toss off "back to Proust," secure in the belief that a) anyone would believe their bedside reading list was topped by Proust, and b) that no one would find a comically pompous attempt to sound so sophisticated as to be "above" a discussion of the historical New England patriciate, or Aldrich's book. Utterly adorable, though, in a sad, obvious sort of way.
DeleteIt was meant in its sad and obvious way, and I am actually rereading A Remembrance of Things Past. My, what long sentences he writes.
DeleteSuch waspy goodness. Thank you.
DeleteOf course you are. As did Marilyn Monroe
DeleteMy family's immigrant experience had little to do with financial security. My dad's father was born in Eastern Europe and arrived in NYC via an ocean-going vessel around the turn of the last century. He was the youngest of eight siblings. Most of his siblings worked in a family business in the garment trade that generated a great deal of wealth; my grandfather went to medical school and was a surgeon in New York his entire career. Despite that every one of those eight siblings was very financially secure, none of them had more than three or four children. two-to-four children seems to have held fast through subsequent generations, though one of my cousins has twelve children.
ReplyDeleteI respectfully submit lower birth rates have more to do with gender equality, particularly women wanting and having careers outside the home and therefore not wanting so many pregnancies or children that someone else would effectively end up raising the kids.
I think Aldrich's observation is true at some fundamental level, but not necessarily stemming from psychological security/insecurity. I think it primarily stems from two competing worldviews that manifest at least partly in families. One worldview is more individualistic and materialistic, the other is more collective and transcendent.
ReplyDeleteFor the former, having a family and raising kids is often delayed later into life in order for the parents to earn more money (for any number of reasons). They therefore have fewer children out of constraint (attempting to bear children past peak child-bearing years) and volition (to pour more resources into fewer children, increasing the chances that their children can pursue the same kind of individualistic, materialistic, slower approach to life). This isn't necessarily bad, as it results in more specialized labor, fewer unwanted pregnancies, greater chances of avoiding poverty, etc. (and my use of "-istic" phraseology is certainly not meant to condemn, only roughly describe). But fundamentally, this worldview sees the family as a one-time launching pad for each individual rather than a cohesive, long-lasting institution. Any idea of a sustained, multi-generational family culture is antithetical to this worldview.
The latter worldview, to no surprise, sees the family as a perpetual institution that, at its best, maintains a consistent, multi-generational culture that not only equips each individual to enter the arena of life and strive admirably toward success (defined more holistically than mere material prosperity), but also compels each individual to partially subsume their individuality under the overarching purpose of the family, so that future generations can benefit from, and contribute to, the same culture. Similar to how these families practice "noblesse oblige" publicly, they practice a similar sort of service, devotion, and "dying to the self" privately, inside the family.
To be clear, both worldviews, at their best, emphasize love, devotion, and service the the present-day, nuclear family; they're likely both fantastic families to grow up in, so to speak. But only the latter takes into account members of the family who will not come into existence for another few centuries.
As we grapple with climate, debt, political polarization, and other substantial issues, I believe concern for future generations is much more at the fore of many minds regardless of familial status.
DeleteNelson Aldrich's analysis wasn't based on any substantive, observable data, i.e. he didn't base his conclusions on interviews, surveys, etc. That doesn't necessarily mean his conclusion is wrong (although I think it is), just that the reader needs to realize that his conclusions are basically subjective speculation. He also takes a very Freudian approach, and tends to read too much into things. Why did they have more kids? Because they could! It's as simple as that. To attribute their decisions to conscious "psychological security" or "psychological insecurity is just inane psychobabble.
ReplyDeleteGo read E. Digby Baltzell & William Graham Sumner.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to hazard a guess I would say that Northeast Harbor is more old school with a longer history of patrician leaders summering than Camden. I think of Charles William Eliot of the Boston Eliot family, president of Harvard College in the late nineteenth century, who put Northeast Harbor on the map as a place to to spend the summer.
ReplyDeleteA brief history of Camden (which had an inclusive industrial heritage that NEH did not, except for some summer inhabitants who were 'captains of industry'). https://www.librarycamden.org/walsh-history-center/midcoast-history/ Northeast was more of a farming community until 'rusticators' found it to their liking: https://www.mainememory.net/bin/Features?t=fp&feat=268&supst=Exhibits
ReplyDeleteOld Money is truly quite the read! Northeast Harbor does, to me anyway have more of the old way feel to it.
ReplyDeleteOne reader's review of Aldrich's "Old Money": http://alasdairekpenyong.weebly.com/blog/book-review-old-money-the-mythology-of-americas-upper-class-by-nelson-w-aldrich-jr
ReplyDelete"After all they held a huge advantage over other newcomers, they spoke the language. Hence they snapped up all the guaranteed paycheck jobs; policemen, firemen, school teachers, the like. "
ReplyDeleteAmen to this. I married into a large Irish Catholic New York Family. I was from the midwest. Everyone in my new family worked for the City, State, County. Sanitation, Fire, Police, DPW. No one worked in the private sector. They all retired in their early 50's and spent the test of their lives on the beach in Belle Harbor and Breezy Point.
So sad the the old-timey Breezy Point burned so much during Hurricane Sandy. I imagine its been largely rebuilt.
DeleteBreezy Point aka “Irish Riviera.”
Delete