Respectable and Disreputable: Leisure Time in Antebellum Montgomery

Respectable and Disreputable describes how Montgomerians spent their increasing leisure time during the four decades preceding the Civil War. Women and slaves are included, but white male activities dominate. These include everyday activities, such as gambling, drinking, sporting, hunting, and voluntary associations-military, literary, self-improvement, fraternal, and civic. The book also includes seasonal activities-religious and national holidays, fairs, balls, horse racing, and summering at mineral springs. Commercial entertainment, which became more prominent in the late antebellum period, included theater, opera, circuses, and minstrel shows. Author Jeffrey Benton's intent, however, is not merely to describe those everyday, seasonal, and commercial activities, but also to address contemporary conflict on how leisure time should be spent. Woven throughout the book are comparisons between Montgomery and other cities and towns in antebellum America. Although the United States may have been increasingly divided economically, on rural-urban experiences, and of course on the issue of slavery, antebellum Americans, at least those with easy access to urban areas, shared very similar leisure time activities.