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The Middle-Class During The Market Revolution

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The Middle-Class During The Market Revolution
As the middle-class cut its social ties to the wage earners, their authority began to diminish over issues of morality, sobriety, and productivity. Revival religion became a solution for the middle-class in attempts to resolve the problems of class and order during the early stages of the market revolution. Through the influence of religious revival, there was a strong push for work discipline and adjustments in social behavior. The middle class believed that promoting religious revival to the young, uneducated and rowdy wage laborers would be an effective “social control” tool to discipline the workforce. “A free society must teach men to govern themselves, and there is no greater inducement to self-restraint than belief in God” (136). These

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