Arising out of the context of the re-configuration of Europe, new perspectives are applied by the authors of this volume to the process of nation-building in the United States. By focusing on a variety of public celebrations and festivities from the Revolution to the early twentieth century, the formative period of American national identity, the authors reveal the complex interrelationships between collective identities on the local, regional, and national level which, over time, shaped the peculiar character of American nationalism.

This volume combines vivid descriptions of various public celebrations with a sophisticated methodological and theoretical approach.

Geneviève Fabre teaches at the Institut Charles V of the University of Paris VII (Denis Diderot).

Editors' Preface

IntroductionGeneviève Fabre andJürgen Heideking

Chapter 1. Celebrating the Constitution: The Federal Processions of 1788 and the Emergence of a Republican Festive Culture in the United StatesJürgen Heideking

Chapter 2. The Nation as a Spectacle: The Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia, 1788Dietmar Schloss

Chapter 3. Revolutionary Festivals and Political Violence: The Impact of the French Revolution in AmericaMarie-Jeanne Rossignol

Chapter 4. From Celebrating Victory to Celebrating the Nation: The War of 1812 and American National IdentityMichael Wala

Chapter 5. Performing Freedom: Negro Election Celebrations as Political and Intellectual Resistance in New England, 1740-1850Geneviève Fabre

Chapter 6. Italian Americans and Columbus Day: A Quest for Consensus between National and Group Identities, 1840-1910Bénédicte Deschamps

Chapter 7."... to divide their love": Celebrating Frenchness and Americanization in San Francisco, 1850-1909Annick Foucrier

Chapter 8. Charity on Parade: Chicago's Jews and the Construction of Ethnic and Civic "Gemeinschaft in the 1860sTobias Brinkmann

Chapter 9. Demonstrating the Values of 'Gemütlichkeit' and 'Cultur': The Festivals of German Americans in Milwaukee, 1870-1910Heike Bungert

Chapter 10. Halloween - A Re-invented Holiday: Celebrating White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Middle-Class AmericaAdrien Lherm

Chapter 11. Climate, Identity and Winter Carnivals in North AmericaBernard Mergen

Chapter 12. Creating and Instrumentalizing Nationalism: The Celebration of National Reunion in the Peace Jubilees of 1898Fabian Hilfrich

Chapter 13. Historical Bonding with an Expiring Heritage: Revisiting the Plymouth Tercentenary Festivities of 1920-21Udo Hebel

List of Contributors Index