This cultural history of American federalism argues that nation-building cannot be understood apart from the process of industrialization and the making of the working class in the late-eighteenth-century United States. Citing the coincidental rise of federalism and industrialism, Laura Rigal examines the creations and performances of writers, collectors, engineers, inventors, and illustrators who assembled an early national "world of things," at a time when American craftsmen were transformed into wage laborers and production was rationalized, mechanized, and put to new ideological purposes. American federalism emerges here as a culture of self-making, in forms as various as street parades, magazine writing, painting, autobiography, advertisement, natural history collections, and trials and trial transcripts. Chapters center on the craftsmen who celebrated the Constitution by marching in Philadelphia's Grand Federal Procession of 1788; the autobiographical writings of John Fitch, an inventor of the steamboat before Fulton; the exhumation and museum display of the "first American mastodon" by the Peale family of Philadelphia; Joseph Dennie's literary miscellany, the Port Folio; the nine-volume American Ornithology of Alexander Wilson; and finally the autobiography and portrait of Philadelphia locksmith Pat Lyon, who was falsely imprisoned for bank robbery in 1798 but eventually emerged as an icon for the American working man. Rigal demonstrates that federalism is not merely a political movement, or an artifact of language, but a phenomenon of culture: one among many innovations elaborated in the "manufactory" of early American nation-building.

Class I. Foreign relations. 6 v. 1st Cong.-20th Cong., 1st sess., April 30, 1789-May 24, 1828.--class II. Indian affairs. 2 v. 1st Cong.-19th Cong., May 25, 1789-March 1, 1827.--class III. Finance. 5 v. 1st Cong.-20th Cong., 1st sess., April 11, 1789-May 16, 1828.--class IV. Commerce and navigation. 2 v. 1st Cong.-17th Cong., April 13, 1789-Feb. 25, 1823.--Class V. Military affairs. 7 v. 1st Cong.-25th Cong., 2d sess., Aug. 10, 1789-March 1, 1838.--class VI. Naval affairs. 4 v. 3d Cong.-24th Cong., 1st sess., Jan 20, 1794-June 15, 1836.--class VII. Post Office department. 1 v. 1st Cong., 2d sess.-22d Cong., Jan. 22, 1790-Feb. 21, 1883.--class VIII. Public lands. 8 v. 1st Cong.-24th Cong., July 1, 1790-Feb. 28, 1837.--class IX. Claims. 1 v. 1st Cong., 2d sess.-17th Cong., Feb. 5, 1790-March 3, 1823.--class X. Miscellaneous. 2 v. 1st Cong.-17th Cong., April 17, 1789-March 3, 1823

Renza, Shawn Rosenheim, and Laura Saltz.--Kenneth Dauber, State University of New York, Buffalo

This qualitative case study of an American manufacturing organization describes the barriers which limited its ability to receive maximum return on its investment for training and development resources invested in their human assets. Changing global economics have forced organizations to the realization that their competitive advantage lies in developing and tapping into their human assets or human capital. Professionals, managers, human resource development specialists, and academicians alike have developed theories supporting the systematic development of human assets to improve performance and achieve organizational business goals. This book examines how one organization, typically described as a High Performance Organization, attempted to put theory into application. Specifically, the book examines the concepts of needs assessment, systems theory, organization development, human capital theory, and performance improvement. The results find a systemic failure in human asset development initiatives rooted in the failure to view the organization as a whole, systematically assess performance, and involve the entire organization in designing and implementing a holistic approach to improving performance and developing the organizations human assets. Specifically, inefficient organizational structure and lack of clearly defined business goals were significant barriers to the systematic development of their human assets.