Sink or Swim: Capitalist Selfhood and Nineteenth-Century American Literature
People living in the nineteenth-century United States saw shocking upheavals in both the economy and in ideas of selfhood in a commercial society. Narratives such as Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches tales allured Americans with visions of financial success, while events such as the Panics of 1819, 1837, 1857, and 1865 threatened them with sudden and devastating financial failure. The antebellum period’s “go-ahead” ethos encouraged individuals to form an identity amid this chaos by striving for financial success through risk-taking—that is, to form a capitalist self. Andrew Kopec argues that writers of this era were not immune to this business turbulence; rather, their responses to it shaped the development of American literature. By examining the public and private writings of well-known American writers—including Washington Irving, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Frederick Douglass—Kopec contends that, instead of anxiously retreating from the volatile market, these figures deliberately engaged with it in their writing.
These writers grappled with both the limits and opportunities of capitalist selfhood and tried, in various ways, to harness the economy’s energies for the benefit of the self. In making this argument, Kopec invites readers to consider how this era of American literature questioned the ideologies of capitalist identity that seem inescapable today.
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Sink or Swim: Capitalist Selfhood and Nineteenth-Century American Literature
People living in the nineteenth-century United States saw shocking upheavals in both the economy and in ideas of selfhood in a commercial society. Narratives such as Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches tales allured Americans with visions of financial success, while events such as the Panics of 1819, 1837, 1857, and 1865 threatened them with sudden and devastating financial failure. The antebellum period’s “go-ahead” ethos encouraged individuals to form an identity amid this chaos by striving for financial success through risk-taking—that is, to form a capitalist self. Andrew Kopec argues that writers of this era were not immune to this business turbulence; rather, their responses to it shaped the development of American literature. By examining the public and private writings of well-known American writers—including Washington Irving, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Frederick Douglass—Kopec contends that, instead of anxiously retreating from the volatile market, these figures deliberately engaged with it in their writing.
These writers grappled with both the limits and opportunities of capitalist selfhood and tried, in various ways, to harness the economy’s energies for the benefit of the self. In making this argument, Kopec invites readers to consider how this era of American literature questioned the ideologies of capitalist identity that seem inescapable today.
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Sink or Swim: Capitalist Selfhood and Nineteenth-Century American Literature

Sink or Swim: Capitalist Selfhood and Nineteenth-Century American Literature

by Andrew Kopec
Sink or Swim: Capitalist Selfhood and Nineteenth-Century American Literature

Sink or Swim: Capitalist Selfhood and Nineteenth-Century American Literature

by Andrew Kopec

Overview

People living in the nineteenth-century United States saw shocking upheavals in both the economy and in ideas of selfhood in a commercial society. Narratives such as Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches tales allured Americans with visions of financial success, while events such as the Panics of 1819, 1837, 1857, and 1865 threatened them with sudden and devastating financial failure. The antebellum period’s “go-ahead” ethos encouraged individuals to form an identity amid this chaos by striving for financial success through risk-taking—that is, to form a capitalist self. Andrew Kopec argues that writers of this era were not immune to this business turbulence; rather, their responses to it shaped the development of American literature. By examining the public and private writings of well-known American writers—including Washington Irving, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Frederick Douglass—Kopec contends that, instead of anxiously retreating from the volatile market, these figures deliberately engaged with it in their writing.
These writers grappled with both the limits and opportunities of capitalist selfhood and tried, in various ways, to harness the economy’s energies for the benefit of the self. In making this argument, Kopec invites readers to consider how this era of American literature questioned the ideologies of capitalist identity that seem inescapable today.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781469679587
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 09/30/2025
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 204

About the Author

Andrew Kopec is associate professor of English at Purdue University Fort Wayne.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Andrew Kopec fills an inexplicable gap in the cultural history of US financial crisis by concentrating on one of the most rapid expansionary periods in the history of capitalism. In his book, he wisely rejects that cliché about the financial psyche—which forgets the lessons of crisis as soon as the crisis is over—and emphasizes how chaotic phases of financialization impact market actors during long periods of relative stability, making the financialized self not an aberration, but the norm for antebellum Americans.”—Matt Seybold, Elmira College

“Andrew Kopec offers a deep and astute meditation on how nineteenth-century American authors grappled with the idea of ‘capitalist selfhood’ within the era’s highly unstable ‘go-ahead’ economy. The book is well written, well paced, and timely.”—Susan Ryan, University of Louisville

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Related Subjects

Literature
Literary Criticism
General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism
Modern Literature
Literature, Modern->19th century->History and criticism
Literature
Literary Criticism
General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism
Modern Literature
Literature, Modern->19th century->History and criticism

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