| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 599 words from this article are provided below; about 536 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Kathleen D. McCarthy. American Creed: Philanthropy and the Rise of Civil Society, 1700–1865. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 319. $35.00.
Developments on the world stage and in domestic politics over the past two decades—notably, sociopolitical changes in Eastern Europe and the Reagan-era push for the devolution of social services in the United States from the governmental to the nonprofit sector—have sparked scholarly interest in philanthropic traditions and civil society (defined as "that broad range of institutions and activities that fall between the family and the state," p. 1). Kathleen D. McCarthy contributes to this growing literature by providing a well-researched historical view of the types of voluntary action (by individuals, groups, and institutions) that forged connections between democracy and civil society in the United States in the period from 1700 to 1865. According to McCarthy, much voluntary action during these formative decades in the nation's history was inspired by and cohered around a belief in the dignity and power of the individual, and in the collective power of similar-minded individuals. She writes, "faith in egalitarian ideals, religious freedom, and the right to engage in civic activism have constituted an enduring American creed" (p. 2). In McCarthy's view, philanthropy—the giving of time and financial support for public benefit—has been a means by which these core values have been affirmed and contested and an integral but understudied factor in the nation's economic development and political life.	1
McCarthy has written widely on women's patronage, voluntarism, and contributions to civil society in the United States and has helped encourage the in-depth study of philanthropic traditions and civil society in various national settings. This book, which in many respects is a logical extension of McCarthy's earlier works (Lady Bountiful Revisited: Women, Philanthropy, and Power [1990], and, more recently, her edited volume Women, Philanthropy, and Civil Society [2001]), offers a framework for understanding two major themes in U.S. history: first, how giving, fueled in large part by religious and political beliefs and prominently influenced by the American Revolution and religious disestablishment, subsidized and enabled a tradition of limited government in the United States, and, second, how philanthropy became an avenue by which various groups—not just the financially privileged—have exerted their social vision and vied for power in public life.	2
McCarthy challenges the assumptions underlying much political and scholarly discussion about the historic relationship between citizens and the state. She writes: "Most studies present the nonprofit sector as a separate sphere, a prop to government, a counterweight, or a forum for public discourse and civic bonding, but rarely as an inherent part of governmental or market operations per se" (p. 3). According to McCarthy, the view that "nonprofits test while government enacts" and, concomitantly, that "private actors" are ultimately "crowded out" once government enters a particular arena began to gain sway in the 1980s "as campaigns to dismantle the welfare state were cast as a quest to return the country to its historic roots, when public and private responsibilities were supposedly pristinely separate, and local citizens cared for their own, on their own" (emphasis in original, p. 4). Challenging this interpretation of the past and its assertion that society has been configured in three discrete sectors—business, government, and the nonprofit sector (also commonly referred to as the "third" or "independent" sector)—McCarthy documents various partnerships between government and citizen's groups (including charities) and the entrepreneurial nature of some nonprofit bodies to support her claim that throughout U.S. history "philanthropy, governance, and the economy were inherently linked" (p. 6).	. . .

There are about 536 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.