A sense of their duty

"Using the towns of Galt and Goderich as case studies, Andrew Holman shows how population growth, industrial change, and the expansion of government contributed to profound changes to Ontario's social structure between the 1850s and the 1890s with an identifiable and self-identified middle class emerging between the idle rich and the working class. Businessmen, professionals, and white-collar workers developed a new sense of authority that extended beyond the workplace, and local electors, breadwinners, and members of voluntary associations and reform societies set middle class standards of behavior that enjoyed currency and relevance throughout the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.