Leisure in Middletown: cultural change and social capital in an inter-war American community

ABSTRACT In both America and Great Britain, the social survey became an important tool for the documentation of leisure in the late nineteenth century. To social reformers it revealed inequalities to be addressed; to policy makers it was essential to planning and civic renewal. The Middletown survey was a social study of the city of Muncie, Indiana in 1924. As one of the earliest social surveys to be conducted by social anthropology, it remains a classic text of social science. Social anthropology dealt directly with the everyday life of the organic community and the cultural values and practices of people. It regarded leisure not as superfluous but as a vital field of both private and social life. Undertaken in the new modernity of the inter-war period, the Middletown survey presents a contemporaneous interpretation of the impact of the new technologies of the cinema, radio and automobile on established leisure patterns and of the changing nature and social functions of leisure-based clubs and associations. Anticipating recent interest in leisure and social capital, it reveals historical awareness of the importance of associational leisure activity to community cohesion and offers insights to a nascent sociology of leisure not yet widely recognized in leisure studies.