Middletown Studies - Overview of Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture

Overview of Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture

Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture was primarily a look at changes in a typical American city between 1890 and 1925, a period of great economic change.

The Lynds used the "approach of the cultural anthropologist" (see field research and social anthropology), existing documents, statistics, old newspapers, interviews, and surveys to accomplish this task. The stated goal of the study was to describe this small urban center as a unit which consists of "interwoven trends of behavior" (p. 3). Or put in more detail,

"to present a dynamic, functional study of the contemporary life of this specific American community in the light of trends of changing behaviour observable in it during the last thirty-five years" (p. 6).

The book is written in an entirely descriptive tone, treating the citizens of Middletown in much the same way as an anthropologist from an industrialized nation might describe a non-industrial culture.

Following anthropologist W. H. R. Rivers' classic Social Organization, the Lynds write that the study proceeded "under the assumption that all the things people do in this American city may be viewed as falling under one or another of the following six main-trunk activities:

• Making a living.
• Getting a home.
• Training the young.
• Using leisure in various forms of play, art, and so on.
• Engaging in religious practices.
• Engaging in community activities.