"Victims at the shrine of Libertinism": gender in the seduction tales of the late eighteenth century -- Victim of seduction or vicious women? Conceptions of the prostitute at the Philadelphia Magdaden Society and beyond -- "The most powerful instrument of college discipline": the University of Pennsylvania and the Advent of meritocracy in the early republic -- Harvesting youth: the competition for souls in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia and beyond -- "The young man's friend": advice manuals and the dangerous journey to self-made manhood -- Private libertines: emergent strategies for the control of male youth in Bourgeois America
Summary
In attempting to steer young adults safely away from the dangers of market-driven society, reformers in early America created values that came to define the emerging urban middle class
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-248) and index
