Caldwell, Taylor. 1946. This Side of Innocence. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
On the surface this is a period romance, however there are underlying themes that relate to technology and society. The romance portion revolves around the Lindsey family. They include an aging grandfather William, a spinster daughter Dorothea, and a derelict son Jerome. As children, the siblings were joined by their cousin Alfred. Dorothea had long term designs on her cousin who became adopted by the widower patriarch. William was a banker. He retired and while Jerome was off sewing wild oats, Alfred was the steadfast bank manager. Alfred married, fathered a crippled son Phillip.
Alfred’s first wife passed away. Instead of acting on the obvious (for the time period) choice of his cousin Dorothea, Alfred used his influence and money to connect with a questionable younger lady of the area, Amalie. Jerome gets low on money and fears Alfred will step in with his betrothed and take over the family fortune so he returns to the family mansion.
Intrigue surrounds the family. Jerome and Alfred both work at the bank with rivalrous philosophies of how to manage affairs. Amalie marries Alfred, but later Jerome and she have a tryst while Alfred is away on business. Alfred assaults Jerome and nearly kills him. He then divorces Amalie and moves out of the family home along with his son. Dorothea moves away with him as well, though they never marry or even have any sort of romantic relationship. Jerome and Amalie eventually marry and have two children together. For nineteen years there is animosity between the two homes. All the stress causes the death of the patriarch William.
It is the next generation stirs up the hatred as Phillip becomes a trusted partner to Jerome. The older child to Jerome and Amalie is Mary. She and Phillip eventually fall in love and want to marry. That brings the old hatred out again. Alfred has softened from the conservative business man to a benefactor of the community. He only does so through persuasion of Phillip. Jerome has been in favor of using the bank to improve living standards in the community all along, so he and Phillip work together to make improvements to Rivers End. When he and Mary announce their desire to marry, all are supportive except Jerome who flies into a rage. On the way home from a confrontation with Alfred and Jerome he softens, then dies as the carriage he was riding in overturns in a bad winter storm.
The family journey is about greed, betrayal, remorse and eventually some reconciliation, though not complete. The technology and social aspects are interesting. In a number of places in the book there are philosophical arguments about the best way to use the finances of the bank and prominent citizens. Alfred is about investing conservatively and maintaining an agrarian society with money controlled by wealthy landholders. Jerome wants to invest in factories and housing for the workers. He wants each worker to have a small plot of land of their own to raise their own food, or created marketable crops as they see fit. Phillip agrees with Jerome and together they turn the investors locally and with Jerome’s connections in New York from his profligate past.
The technology comes from the arguments around how building factories and creating a more industrial society would take people away from the land. Acquisition of things become the pursuit as people become more materialistic. Education is also an argument in the story as to whether it would cause workers to become less satisfied, or help them improve their lives. There were also debates around who should lead society. Alfred favored the cold businessman. Phillip was more about educated social science minded people. Jerome argued for a mix of STEM and social sciences. Both Jerome and Phillip agreed that leaders should come from all walks of life and they established scholarships to help make that happen. Secretly, Alfred joined their cause with the persuasion of Phillip over years. Jerome never knew this was the case.
In chapter fifty-five Amalie argues that those building society like Jerome and Phillip were really doing it for selfish reasons. She postulates that people build walls out of fear, and creating a happy community at Rivers End was really just Jerome’s way of building a wall. By placating the people he would have a buffer around himself. She herself had married Alfred for his access to money, then began to feel more respect for him as she got to know him. Despite this, she allowed her feelings for Jerome to overcome her and they had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy. If one follows her own logic, it could be said that marrying Alfred and later Jerome for money and perhaps some form of love was her way of building a wall out of fear as well.
In general I’m not a romance fan. I got this book among a bunch of older ones from various library sales. I guess the STS (science, technology, and society) scholar in me latched on to the tech and society implications in the book. Perhaps Caldwell was trying to make social statements and used the family story as a way to contextualize her thoughts.
On the surface this is a period romance, however there are underlying themes that relate to technology and society. The romance portion revolves around the Lindsey family. They include an aging grandfather William, a spinster daughter Dorothea, and a derelict son Jerome. As children, the siblings were joined by their cousin Alfred. Dorothea had long term designs on her cousin who became adopted by the widower patriarch. William was a banker. He retired and while Jerome was off sewing wild oats, Alfred was the steadfast bank manager. Alfred married, fathered a crippled son Phillip.
Alfred’s first wife passed away. Instead of acting on the obvious (for the time period) choice of his cousin Dorothea, Alfred used his influence and money to connect with a questionable younger lady of the area, Amalie. Jerome gets low on money and fears Alfred will step in with his betrothed and take over the family fortune so he returns to the family mansion.
Intrigue surrounds the family. Jerome and Alfred both work at the bank with rivalrous philosophies of how to manage affairs. Amalie marries Alfred, but later Jerome and she have a tryst while Alfred is away on business. Alfred assaults Jerome and nearly kills him. He then divorces Amalie and moves out of the family home along with his son. Dorothea moves away with him as well, though they never marry or even have any sort of romantic relationship. Jerome and Amalie eventually marry and have two children together. For nineteen years there is animosity between the two homes. All the stress causes the death of the patriarch William.
It is the next generation stirs up the hatred as Phillip becomes a trusted partner to Jerome. The older child to Jerome and Amalie is Mary. She and Phillip eventually fall in love and want to marry. That brings the old hatred out again. Alfred has softened from the conservative business man to a benefactor of the community. He only does so through persuasion of Phillip. Jerome has been in favor of using the bank to improve living standards in the community all along, so he and Phillip work together to make improvements to Rivers End. When he and Mary announce their desire to marry, all are supportive except Jerome who flies into a rage. On the way home from a confrontation with Alfred and Jerome he softens, then dies as the carriage he was riding in overturns in a bad winter storm.
The family journey is about greed, betrayal, remorse and eventually some reconciliation, though not complete. The technology and social aspects are interesting. In a number of places in the book there are philosophical arguments about the best way to use the finances of the bank and prominent citizens. Alfred is about investing conservatively and maintaining an agrarian society with money controlled by wealthy landholders. Jerome wants to invest in factories and housing for the workers. He wants each worker to have a small plot of land of their own to raise their own food, or created marketable crops as they see fit. Phillip agrees with Jerome and together they turn the investors locally and with Jerome’s connections in New York from his profligate past.
The technology comes from the arguments around how building factories and creating a more industrial society would take people away from the land. Acquisition of things become the pursuit as people become more materialistic. Education is also an argument in the story as to whether it would cause workers to become less satisfied, or help them improve their lives. There were also debates around who should lead society. Alfred favored the cold businessman. Phillip was more about educated social science minded people. Jerome argued for a mix of STEM and social sciences. Both Jerome and Phillip agreed that leaders should come from all walks of life and they established scholarships to help make that happen. Secretly, Alfred joined their cause with the persuasion of Phillip over years. Jerome never knew this was the case.
In chapter fifty-five Amalie argues that those building society like Jerome and Phillip were really doing it for selfish reasons. She postulates that people build walls out of fear, and creating a happy community at Rivers End was really just Jerome’s way of building a wall. By placating the people he would have a buffer around himself. She herself had married Alfred for his access to money, then began to feel more respect for him as she got to know him. Despite this, she allowed her feelings for Jerome to overcome her and they had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy. If one follows her own logic, it could be said that marrying Alfred and later Jerome for money and perhaps some form of love was her way of building a wall out of fear as well.
In general I’m not a romance fan. I got this book among a bunch of older ones from various library sales. I guess the STS (science, technology, and society) scholar in me latched on to the tech and society implications in the book. Perhaps Caldwell was trying to make social statements and used the family story as a way to contextualize her thoughts.
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