‘Self-created societies’: Sociability and statehood in the Pittsburgh enlightenment

Reading political activities in western Pennsylvania in light of their conflict with the national government, the chapter argues that Brackenridge’s representations of the frontier should be seen as the work of a writer who regarded himself as a voice from the margins of the Atlantic Enlightenment. Frank’s account of the club’s autotelic sociability elegantly describes the novelty of the urban Democratic-Republican societies political organization, even though, as will be shown, his model is less applicable to the frontier clubs. A space within civil society for free sociability thus arose out of what might seem to be a theoretical double bind: by challenging the self-created nature of any constituted authority, the Democratic-Republican Societies would question the legitimacy even of those institutional forms to which they themselves gave rise. The power of the insurrection’s leaders is not directly political indeed, with political power they would probably not be up in arms but it is no less significant for being social.