Abstract

One of the more perplexing problems in American historiography is the search for group identity. Writing about a group, the historian is unable frequently to describe precisely what it is. The American patriciate is no exception to the general problem of defining group identity.The historian approaches group definition, or an approximation of it, through interaction between historical evidence bearing upon group membership and analytic constructs imposed upon the data. Some of these are borrowed from the social sciences and seem to su$er as a consequence of the seemingly unnatural transplant. Others rise more naturally from the data. One strives for the correct synthesis of data and theory that, somehow, is never as satisfactory as the historian and his critics would like it to be.