The Transformation of Ritual Performance Traditions in Early American Political Culture
"Overall, the dissertation considers the changes that occurred in election rituals by looking at the electioneering attendant to the early colonial period through the emergence popular mass campaigning in the middle of the Jacksonian era. Chapters One and Two outline the study and the theoretical framework used, and provide historical background for the American political culture. Chapter Three introduces Turner's ""social drama"" as a way of connecting four points of major political change in American history: the Great Awakenings, the Revolution, the adoption of the Constitution, and the emergence of stable national political parties. Chapters Four and Five explore the ways that these events are genealogically consistent by examining the performance characteristics of the underlying rituals over the span of time. The dissertation concludes with suggestions for further research."
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign