The Gilded Age: The First Generation of Historians by H. Wayne Morgan University of Oklahoma, April 18, 1997
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Dunning ended his story in 1877, now an established breakpoint in the narrative of American history. The series' next coverage, of domestic events in the 1880s and 1890s, required two volumes, which attested both to interest in the recent past, and to the new complexities of the story. Edwin Earle Sparks of the University of Chicago focused on both public events and deeper social forces in the years 1877-1885. He used the Centennial Exposition of 1876, with its emphasis on culture, as well as machinery, to symbolize the new world industrial order. He covered changes in both the composition and the work of the population; the growth of science and technology; and the education system that prepared citizens and workers for the industrial order. He treated the dissatisfactions of workers and farmers as well as the successes of businessmen and managers. He concluded with Grover Cleveland's first election, which he thought indicated a final shift from residual civil war issues to those derived from the new economy and society.[22] Davis Rich Dewey continued this story for the years 1885-1897. Dewey, a Johns Hopkins PhD, then a statistician and economist at MIT, was well known for his knowledge of the labor force, demography and production. He thought that more intense social change had registered in these few years than in any other period in American history, which indicated the power of industrialism not only to change the landscape, but also to alter human relationships. He dealt with many familiar subjects, but saw them in this light of development and conflict. The railroads, for instance, obviously helped develop the country, but also seemed to produce discrimination and unsavory politics. He generally sympathized with labor, but disliked violence. Farmers had their points to make, but solutions such as currency tinkering were dangerous to the nation. He spent a lifetime with statistics, but recognized the real emotional feelings about big business that would fuel public action. "The company lived in an air of mystery, and this, apart from any economic evils which might be ascribed to the monoply, did much to intensify public resentment." For Dewey, the great issue no w was how to accomodate both people who had not benefitted from industrialism, and those who had, but feared its direction.[23] The last volume in this group covered the story of the United States in world afairs at the turn of the century. Its author, John Holladay Latanâ, a Johns Hopkins PhD, was an expert on relations with Spanish America. He had a gift for analyzing and simplifying complex foreign affairs, and led in developing international studies in higher education. He also became a strong proponent of the League of Nations and its ancillary bodies. Latanâ's book in the series treated America's emergence into the world as a logical if sometimes unpredictable process. He began with a wonderful reminder to statesmen and their publics: "A nation seldom achieves in war precisely what it has in mind to achieve when the appeal to arms is made." Given geography, economics and emotion, he thought it inevitable that the United States would regulate Cuban affairs. Little about the Spanish-American War surprised him. The Philippines were another matter. Latanâ understood the appeals of pride, commercialism, and world politics in this issue, but placed responsibility for acquiring the islands squarely on President William McKinley. "He professed, it is true, to follow public opinion," he noted, "but he had no right to evade responsibility when he had it in his power to bring about an entirely different result." He perceived clearly that McKinley could have said no at any point in the peace process, but had immediately claimed at least part of the islands, then dispatched a military force to create a presence , before that process started. McKinley clearly saw the islands as a way of exerting influence in Asia in the future, without the dangers of occupying a treaty port. These were major and thoughtful insights, especially given the lack of confidential documents at the time. Latanâ devoted about half the book to less dramatic subjects, such as the Alaska boundary dispute, the isthmian canal, civil government in the Philippines, and postwar relations with Cuba. He also considered immigration an international question, and wrote thoughtfully of the intense current debate about it. He understood the appeals of immigration to provide labor, but recognized validity in public apprehension about accommodating new peoples. "This accumulation of colonies in the great cities is the principal obstacle to the assimilation of immigrants, which is the desideratum."[24] On the whole, like other scholars, Latanâ was more concerned with the ability and willingness of new people to accommodate to existing institutions than he was critical of their background or intrinsic merit. The reception of the completed series in 1908 was mixed. The work of so many minds was bound to be uneven. And the new generation of historians had already decided, in the best Germanic tradition, that an ounce of scholarly monograph was worth pounds of analysis and summary. Even so, reviewers praised the attempt at scope, and at producing readable accurate works. Max Farrand of Yale University thought that with some exceptions, the books represented "the end of the old and not the beginning of the new history that is being studied and written." He was both right and wrong. His new history would appeal chiefly to specialists. Another "New History," identified with such spokesmen as Charles Beard and James Harvey Robinson, would call for a history usable in the public arena, for the public as well as specialists. The series authors themselves doubtless had reservations. They understood the limitations and special demands they faced in trying to please both colleagues and non-experts. But the critics were shortsighted. The public and teachers kept the set in print until a New American Nation Series developed in the late 1950s.[25] Amid all of this interest in both academic history, and in broad analytical series, there was a swansong for the lovingly detailed account. The swan was Harry Thurston Peck, and the song was Twenty Years of the Republic 1885-1905 (1906). Peck took a B.A. at Columbia in 1881, a PhD at Cumberland University in Tennessee in 1884, and was professor of classical and semitic languages at Columbia from 1888 to 1910. He was also a journalist, and edited the influential Bookman from 1895 to 1907. Apart from his scholarly specialty, Peck had an intense interest in current events, especially national politics, and knew many leading figures. He believed in the vitality and importance of the closing era, and saw it as a dramatic play, teeming with unusual events and personalities. He dealt with politics in detail; he could have argued with Rhodes about any tariff measure. But his eye was always on the actors, their style, purposes, and effects on both the story and the reader. He added to the coverage of party battles a keen sense of social change as registered in the disaffections of farmers, workers, and the broader public. He disliked the new corporation, whose owners were no longer the florid Jim Fiske, or the shadowy Jay Gould, but sober and respectable members of silent boards of directors. The silk hat and frock coat had replaced the gaudy vest; the raider had yielded to the consolidator. This meant to Peck that a new power had arisen, and influenced every sector of life. And yet, he could not embrace the obvious alternatives of labor unions and farmers' cooperatives, which promised to be quite as intractable as business. He also feared social turmoil, "this new jacquerie." The heart of the book was a detailed account of the troubles of Cleveland 's second administration, 1893-97. Few writers have captured so well the sense of foreboding around these events--the bond sales that narrowly averted default on the currency; Coxey's Army; the Pullman Strike; the rage in Populism; and the Battle of the Standards in 1896. The reader saw in effect a brilliant play--today we would say a blockbuster movie. Of course, Peck went through these rapids to safer water. The story had a happy ending, for the moment at least, since the American people abided by their political rules and then seemed ready to establish oversight of the economic forces that stood backstage. At 811 pages, one hesitates to call Twenty Year an overview. But it is a fine treatment of the events, with thoughtful analysis in a vivid narrative. A French edition appeared in 1921 and the book was reprinted regularly until 1932. The work's reception indicated that there was still an audience for such detailed narrative, when well told. Paul Leland Haworth, a journalist and historian, later noted for a study of the election of 1876, niggled over details, but thought the book was a tour-de-force, superior to the "scientific historians, who are so anxious not to create a wrong impression that they frequently succeed in creating no impression at all."[26] Let us return to the original question: What view of the period might a reader gain from such contemporary works? The caveats are obvious. Sources and perspective both were thin. And these authors were white, middle-class males, unlikely to vote Populist or join Coxey's Army, however much they sympathized with elements alienated from industrialism. But they represented informed and influential opinion, and believed in the ability of people and the existing system to affect large forces, hence their focus on public events. I suggest these observations on specific categories: Reconstruction. There has been so much revision of this program that we forget how adverse contemporary opinion was towards its end. At worst, this historical wisdom held that it was designed to punish the South and gain Republican political advantage; at best that it had been an honest experiment with the freed slaves that went wrong. Most authors regretted that the policy had diverted attention from the new industrial issues for so long. In any event, the loser was the freed negro, a classic case of blaming the victim. Party politics. The authors saw national politics as the basic arena for expressing popular fears, aspirations, and demands. The balance of parties in Congress, and between Congress and president, meant that the electorate was changing, and that the era was a transition from an agrarian/mercantile society to an industrial one. In the meantime, people expected compromise on great issues for the national good, and opposed what they considered dangerous solutions or violence. The presidency. These authors did not depict a period of weak presidents, which seems to be a construct of writers in the 1930s and after. These presidents appeared to be in the basic tradition of the office. After all, only an extraordinary emergency had allowed Lincoln to exercise extraordinary power. Now, however strident the divisions in and between parties and interests, there was no accepted emergency to support unusual presidential actions. These authors saw congressional government as normal, and while they increasingly thought that executive leadership was critical to meeting new problems, they did not automatically embrace expanded federal power. Of course, these presidents enjoyed varying degrees of approval among the historians. Grant represented the idea of a non-politician taming the politicians. When he failed to do so, under the burden of increasingly unpopular Reconstruction policies, a rowdy finance capitalism, and a sensationalist press (as well as his mistakes), people theen condemned his alleged lack of political skill. Hayes won high marks, chiefly for ending Reconstruction, but also for favoring civil service reform, and for opposing unsavory elements in his own party as well as among Democrats. Garfield's brief term did not figure in the calculations, but Arthur seemed much better than expected, chiefly for supporting civil service reform. Cleveland was the transitional leader. These authors praised his candor and independence, and liked him better than his party. If there was a single determining political event for them in this period, it was his tariff message of 1887, which forced people to think about n ew industrial issues. Benjamin Harrison seemed to be a lost figure. His term produced much significant legislation, which these authors credited to congressional leaders. McKinley puzzled these authors most. In 1896, he seemed to be a typical Ohio politician, suited to combining industrial issues with traditional values. Four years later he had settled major domestic issues, waged a successful war, and set the country on the road to a world role. These writers praised his skill at leading without divisive boldness, and at managing public opinion. But just where his responses to major events came from, and just why he altered the presidency so much remained puzzling.[27] Foreign affairs. Much of this enhanced presidential authority derived from the country's new world roles. If the new industrial society was a natural product of world history, the country's new role was logical, if not always attractive, to these authors. They covered this evolution in detail, treating Grant's proposals to buy Caribbean territory, the Samoan problem of the 1880s, the isthmian canal issue, the Chilean and Venezuelan crises of the 1890s, and the War with Spain as a logical complex of events. They saw in expansion the search for overseas markets, national pride, and the desire for future authority. Woodrow Wilson treated this issue with his usual breadth. The country's acceptable borders were in place; the public had supported continental expansion, and going overseas seemed logical, if unexpected; entering world affairs was another frontier process; and Asia was the future. "The United States could not easily have dispensed with that foothold in the East which the possession of the Philippines so unexpectedly afforded them."[28] Industrial issues. These authors realized that the nation had changed dramatically in the preceding generation. The hotly debated public issues of the 1870s now seemed antique when compared to the complicated human problems that accompanied industrialization after that decade. They were more likely to discuss these changes as "economic conditions," than as mere aspects of "capitalism," or "industrialism." They understood that these and similar issues symbolized not just a change in ways of making a living, but in human relations. Issues such as the tariff, the currency, and civil service reform were very real and important, and marked divisions of opinion about the country's development. They were also steps on the path toward governmental regulation of the agreed-upon ills involved. These authors expected the political, social and legal systems to accommodate to these problems. But their greatest concern was how to regulate new and unwelcome economic activity without affecting familiar economic activities, and how to develop legal rules within the strict interpretaton of the Constitution that reigned. Science and technology. Few generations had seen so much new science and invention, as symbolized in the elaborate expositions which these authors treated in detail as both concentrations of progressive facts and as symbols of emotional changes for the better. Science and technology, were aspects of industrialism that seemed humane, its smiling face. They were impressed with the waves of invention and discovery that produced whole new industries, improved the home and workplace, and enlarged life experience. Advances in medicine, in delivery of services to the new cities, in safety, whether in drinking water or train travel, all promised to alleviate human discomfort that might otherwise find outlets in divisive protests. Science and technology would unify society as well as develop the economy. And what large view of the period did these scholars give a new generation that had not lived through these events? They presented an enormous body of facts and interpretation that made the issues of industrialization seem understandable. They also showed how complex American society and government were, how slowly thought and action adapted to new challenges. And, perhaps most important, these authors realized that only an understanding of how and why recent events had happened could make change acceptable to the public. Their general view of the period was positive. They scored its weaknesses, but underscored its achievements. They realized that the country had changed dramatically in every sector of life, and did not expect this process to slow, let alone stop. As scholars, these historians were well grounded in interpretation, and more thoughtful about meanings in history than were many predecessors. Professionalization was taking command. Interestingly enough, many of the revisionist interpretations that have dominated our own time, are explicit or implicit in this body of writing. True to my old professors' suggestion, these writers understood the limitations as well as the possibilities of coping with such rapid and new changes. They were concerned to expand human dignity as well as human comforts or wealth; they hoped to expand social regulation, but were apprehensive about enlarging governmental power. On the whole, they thought that regulatory laws such as the ICC Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and others were about as far as a complex society and electorate could then go in seeking to control industrialism. At the same time each such step outlined and consolidated the public's power and ability to affect controls. This generally positive image of the period soon yielded because the nature of the historical profession changed. The scholars just following these writers were much more critical of every aspect of historic life. They were more certain that historical knowledge could shape public policy and educate the electorate to require more of themselves as well as of government. Time passed, perspective lengthened, values and expectations changed, as with any historical issue. The period's achievements were always evident. But judgements on its general activities often became ahistorical as a tradition of government intervention in life developed and became the norm in historical judgments for each oncoming generation of scholars. Perhaps we would do well to adopt an eclectic stance in studying this period, and all others for that matter. Judge it by possibilities available at the time; measure its success or failure in its own context; beware of retrospective judgements about matters that were impossible to attain; and pay more attention to establishing its total place in the stream of world as well as American history. A stanza from Walt Whitman would be a good guide to judging the period, and to studying all of the American story: Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------Endnotes------------------------------------------------------------------------1.The best late edition, with introduction, is The Gilded Age: a Tale of Today (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968). The plot summary is in Robert L. Gale, Plots and Characters in the Works of Mark Twain, 2 vols. (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1973), I:224-35. The entry on Warner in Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Scribners, 1918 --), X:462-63 (hereafter DA(B) is useful. Bryant Morey French, Mark Twain and "The Gilded Age," the Book that Named an Era (Dallas: SMU Press, 1965), 192-94 has more information. The background to the book's composition is in Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, A Biography, 3 vols. (New York: Harper Bros., 1912), I:473-79. There is a good analysis of the book's social importance and of its role in Mark Twain's work in Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), 159-81; and in French, Mark Twain and "The Gilded Age", 238-41. 2.For the continuity between the alleged political corruption from earlier periods into the Gilded Age, see Mark W. Summers, The Plundering Generation: Corruption and the Crisis of the Union 1849-1861 (New York: Oxford, 1987). 3.Mark Twain denied that he had invented Sellers, or had embellished his character, noting that most of the scenes involving the Colonel were straight out of his childhood observations of his mother's cousin, James Lampton. All in all, "he was not a person who could be exaggerated." See Albert Bigelow Paine, ed., Mark Twain's Autobiography, 2 vols (New York: Harper Bros., 1924), I:89-90. The drama review is in "Colonel Mulberry Sellers," Nation, 10 (February 25, 1875), 138-39. French, Mark Twain and 'The Gilded Age', 242-55 deals with the play, which focused on Sellers rather than on political or social issues. 4.Van Wyck Brooks, The Ordeal of Mark Twain (New York: Meridian Books, 1955), 64: "It was the epoch of industrial pioneering, the Gilded Age, as Mark Twain called it in the title of his only novel..." It would probably be impossible to discover the original use of the term, or to trace its adoption among writers, but there are some interesting beginnings. Charles and Mary Beard used the term to head chapter XXV of their The Rise of American Civilization, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1927), II, 383-479, chiefly to characterize the period's alleged bad taste in art and culture. Vernon Parrington used the term in The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America 1860-1920 (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1930), 8, and often thereafter, in a larger sense for the period as a whole. Samuel Eliot Morrison did not use it in The Oxford History of the United States, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1928), but did use it in the successor book he coauthored with Henry Steele Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1930) II, 736, as a subheading for chapter XLII, "Arts and Letters." By 1934 when Matthew Josephson used it in The Robber Barons (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1934), 149, the term seems to have been familiar. 5.See his Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1871); Democracy, an American Novel (New York: Henry Holt, 1880); and The History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, 9 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1889-91). Adams wrote another novel, Esther, a Novel (New York: Henry Holt, 1884), under the pen name Frances Compton Snow, which dealt with forbidden relationships between men and women, the social setting, and crises of doubt rather than current events. The best recent work on Adams as a public figure rather than as an intellectual influence or cultural symbol is Brooks D. Simpson, The Political Education of Henry Adams (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996). 6.See Richard D. Mosier, Making the American Mind: Social and Moral Ideas in the McGuffey Readers (New York: Columbia University Press, 1947), 99-165; Dolores P. Sullivan, William Holmes McGuffey: Schoolmaster to the Nation (Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994), 140-63, 214; Frances Fitzgerald, Revising America (New York: Random House, 1980). 7.See the entry in DAB, III: 52-54; William Randel, Edward Eggleston (New York: Twayne, 1963), 122-44; and two typical editions of the texts, A History of the United States and Its People (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888), and The New Century History of the United States (New York: American Book Co., 1899). It is worth noting that during this period and for decades afterwards, many publishers issued two editions of school texts, one for the South, and another for the rest of the country. The best known of these early texts for the South was probably Susan Pendleton Lee, Lee's Advanced School History of the United States (Richmond: B.F. Johnson Pub. Co., 1899). Lee was highly critical of President Lincoln, took the southern side on Reconstruction, and in general tried to emphasize the revival of the region's economy and culture after the Civil War. She was also sympathetic to the labor movement, though like most other authors of all kinds, did not endorse violence. 8.See the entry in DAB, VII:94-95; and a typical edition of his basic text, The Student's American History (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1899). 9.The number of these works is impressive, and included: George Bancroft, History of the United States of America from the Discovery of the Continent, 6 vols. (New York: D. Appleton), which began appearing in 1834 and ended in 1882, with the first of many full editions issued in 1885, and which covered the subject through adoption of the Constitution; Edward Channing, History of the United States, 6 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1905-25), which ended with the Civil War; Richard Hildreth, History of the United States of America, 6 vols. (New York: Harper Bros., 1850-52), which covered the period from discovery to 1821; John Bach McMaster, History of the People of the United States From the Revolution to the Civil War, 8 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1883-1913), which focused on popular life as well as public events; James Schouler, History of the United States Under the Constitution, 7 vols. (New York: Dodd, Mead Co., 1880-1913), for the years 1783-1877; and Herman Eduard von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, 8 vols. (Chicago: Callaghan and Co., 1876-1892), which treated the period from the government's beginnings to the Civil War. 10.See Robert Cruden, James Ford Rhodes: The Man, the Historian, and His Work (Cleveland: Western Reserve University Press, 1961), 35-36, and 278-83, for a full list of Rhodes's publications. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 49. 11.Sales are mentioned in Cruden, James Ford Rhodes, 119. The quotation about style is from William Garrott Brown's review of Vols. VI and VII in American Historical Review, 12 (April, 1907), 680-84. William Archibald Dunning notes what he thought was steady flagging of authorial interest once Rhodes got through the Civil War, in "Rhodes's History of the United States," Educational Review, 34 (September, 1907), 109-15. Paxson's review of Vol. VIII is in American Historical Review, 25 (April, 1920), 525-27, and of Vol. IX, Ibid., 28 (April, 1923), 565-66, with the quotation. David Y. Thomas, a historian of the South at the University of Arkansas, sharply criticized the coverage and tone of Vol. VIII in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 7 (June, 1920), 84-85. The Beard quotation is in his "James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, 1877-1896," New Republic, 21 (December 17, 1919), 82-83. Lester B. Shippee, of the University of Minnesota, criticized the lack of wester n coverage in particular, and non-political issues in general, in a review of the eight volume set, "Rhodes's History of the United States," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 8 (June-September, 1921), 133-48. Selected reviews for the final two volumes, which critics faulted for a sense of tiredness, as well as for being dated, are in Book Review Digest 1920 (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1920), 448, and the same for 1923, p. 452. 12.See the entry on Andrews in DAB, I:286-9; and E. Benjamin Andrews, The History of the United States from the Earliest Discovery of America to the Present Time, 6 vols. (New York: Scribners, 1926), with the quotation in IV:329-30. His first coverage of recent events was The History of the Last Quarter-century in the United States, 2 vols. (New York: Scribners, 1896), and the next was The United States in Our Own Time (New York: Scribners, 1903). Examples of unusual photographs are on pp. 250, 328, 361, 412, 512, 586-87, and 709; some special paintings are on pp. 300, 482, 522, 374. 13.Woodrow Wilson, Division and Reunion 1829-1889 (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1893), esp. 297-99; and Henry Wilkinson Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson: The Academic Years (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 235-40. 14.See Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson, 246-51. 15.A History of the American People, 5 vols. (New York: Harper Bros., 1902), V:131, 197-99,260-62, 266, 296-300. See also Wilson's thoughtful remarks on popular democracy, equality, and social equilibrium in "The Real Idea of Democracy: A Talk, August 31, 1901," reprinted in Auther S. Link, ed, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson (Princeton University Press, 1966-94), XII:79, and his essay about regulation, leadership, and participation, "Politics (1857-1907)," Atlantic Monthly, 100 (November, 1907), 635-46. Two important interpretations are John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Rutherford, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988), 152-71; and David H. Burton, The Learned Presidency: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson (Rutherford, N. J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988), 152-71. 16.See the correspondence dealing with complaints from Poles, Hungarians and Italians in 1912 in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, XXIV:131-36. The basic passage is in History, V:212-13. 17.Wilson to Ellen Axson, October 17, 1883, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, II:479-80, reports on his weariness with seminar research in dusty documents, "which seemed very tiresome in comparison with the grand excursions amongst imperial policies which I had planned for myself." Wilson to Axson, February 24, 1885, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, IV:287 is another report of exasperation at most historical research. "I have no patience for the tedious toil of what is known as >research'; I have a passion for interpreting great thoughts to the world; I should be complete if I could inspire a great movement of opinion, if I could read the experience of the past into the practical life of the men of today and so communicate the thought to the minds of the great mass of people as to impel them to great political achievements." He praised imagination and evocative style in "The Truth of the Matter," Mere Literature and Other Essays (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1896), 185-86. The Gilder quotation, and other information,is in Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson, 247. 18.See Mulder, Woodrow Wilson, 153-57 for the sales. The "gilt-edged" quotation is in Bragdon, Woodrow Wilson, 246-51. Bliss Perry, "Woodrow Wilson as a Man of Letters," Century Magazines, 85 (March 1913), 753-67 is a good statement of Wilson's perceived qualities as a stylist and popularizer. 19.The second of these series, though now forgotten, was interesting. The History of North America, in 20 volumes, appeared between 1903 and 1907, from the publisher George Barrie and Sons in London and Philadelphia. The background and rationale for it are in Guy Carleton Lee, "Editor's Introduction," in the first volume of the series, Alfred Brittain, Discovery and Exploration (Philadelphia: Barrie, 1903), v-xiii. Lee, a historian of England with a PhD from Johns Hopkins University, and some background in journalism, edited volumes 1-14. Francis N. Thorpe, an expert on constitutional issues, with a PhD from Syracuse University, then teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, edited volumes 15 to 20. Their aim was to produce a series that had both variety in viewpoints, and cohesion founded on the new literature the historical profession had produced in recent years. The books were syntheses, aimed at the literate reader, and were about twice as long as those in the American Nation Series, but the coverage differed. This series covered the North American continent, with volumes on Mexico and Central America, Canada and Alaska, the native Indians, and prehistoric North America, as well as period treatments of United States history. The books were illustrated with photographs, had bibliographies and chronologies, and were clearly written. Hart's series was in better format, and easier to read. On Lee, see the entry in Who Was Who In America 1897-1942 (1942), 716; for Thorpe, see National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White Co., 1848--), X (1900), 509-10, hearafter NCAB. In deference to residual sentiments, there were two volumes on the Civil War: William Robertson Garrett, of Peabody Normal College, The Civil War from a Southern Standpoint, vol. XIV (1905), and Francis N. Thorpe, The Civil War From a Northern Viewpoint, vol. XV (1906). The volumes dealing with the Gilded Age began with Peter Joseph Hamilton, The Reconstruction Period, vol. XVI (1905). Hamilton Studied at Princeton and Leipzig, and practiced law in Alabama. He developed a legal and constitutional approach, and agreed that while states' rights might have been valid before 1861, facts and history had made the federal government supreme by 1865. He accepted the view that Reconstruction was punitive, corrupt, and doomed to failure, but with some thoughtfulness. The end of Reconstruction in 1877 struck him as a basic change: "A compromise of vaster importance [in 1877] than that of 1850 had been reached, not the less valid because tacit. The negro was assured liberty and civil equality, and the crusade for fraternity was abandoned." (P. 556). Philip Alexander Bruce continued the coverage in The Rise of the New South, vol. XVII (1905). Bruce, was a BA from the University of Virginia, with a law degree from Harvard, who had studied Virginia history, and was associated with the University of Virginia and the Virginia Historical Society. He focu sed on economic development and diversification in the New South, predicting that transportation systems, industry, and science and technology would at last integrate the region with the world economy. He favored ending Negro suffrage, relied on education to improve the black's lot, and in general thought that the South would settle its own problems. Joseph Morgan Rogers covered the other part of the story in The Development of the North Since the Civil War, vol. XVIII (1906). Rogers was a Philadelphia newspaper editor, who wrote biographies of Thomas Hart Benton and Henry Clay. Not surprisingly, he favored internal improvements as the key to economic development. His text treated the usual political, economic and social events, and closed with a discussion of science and technology, which he thought would help unify both the nation's interests and emotions. He assumed that the existing system could manage the new social and industrial issues. Albert Edward McKinley concluded the coverage of the period with Island Possessions of the United States, vol. XX (1907). McKinley had received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and taught at Temple University. He had published works on the colonial period, and was an expert on suffrage. He was also a leading spokesman for improved teaching methods and materials at all levels of education. His treatment of expansion and the insular possessions covered legal and constitutional issues, as well as politics and diplomacy. He was skeptical about overseas expansion, and of the elastic interpretations of constitutional law that followed it. These volumes covered the Gilded Age as thoroughly as, if not more-so than, the American Nation series titles, but were somehow less appealing and more formal. Nevertheless, they represented a conscientious effort to explain the events involved with a balance and fairness that did not preclude disagreement, and that gave the era its proper due in the stream of recent American history. On Hamilton, see NCAB, XIII:397-97; on Bruce, see Ibid., (1958), XXXXII:175-76; on Rogers, see Who Was Who 1897-1942 (1942), 1052; on McKinley, see DAB, Suppl. II:2118-19. 20.On Hart, see DAB, Suppl. III:335-38; NCAB, XXXXVII:146-47; and his "Editor's Introduction to the Series," in volume 1, Edward Potts Cheyney, European Background of American History (New York: Harper Bros., 1904), xv-xix. A final volume, number 28, came out in 1918, Frederic Austin Ogg, National Progress 1907-1917. 21.William Archibald Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic 1865-1877 (New York: Harper Bros., 1907), xv-xvi, 220-37. On Dunning, see DAB, III:523-24; NCAB, XIX:2728; Philip R. Mulwer, "Look Back Without Anger: A Reappraisal of William A. Dunning," Journal of American History, 51 (September, 1974), 325-38; Novick, That Noble Dream, 77-80. 22.On Sparks, see DAB, IX:430; NCAB, XX:350-51; Edwin Earle Sparks, National Development 1877-1885 (New York: Harper Bros., 1907), 3-50, 68-84, 265-81, 521-64. 23.See NCAB, XIII:371. Dewey had written many specialized studies and reports for governments. His best known work was probably Financial History of the United States (New York: Longmans, 1902). See his National Problems 1885-1897 (New York: Harper Bros., 1907), xii-xiv, 40-56, 91-111, 188-202 (with quotation on 192), 314-28. 24.On Latanâ, see DAB, Suppl. I, 483-84. His book was titled America as a World Power 1897-1907 (New York: Harper Bros., 1907). The warning quotation is on p. 3; that about McKinley on pp. 78-79; that on immigration, on p. 290. 25.Max Farrand, "The American Nation: A History," American Historical Review, 13 (April, 1908), 591-95; St. George L. Sioussat, "The American Nation: 1865-1907," Dial, 44 (May 16, 1908), 309-12; "The American Nation," Independent, 64 (February 13, 1908), 368-69. 26.On Peck, see DAB, VII:377-79. The quotation is on p. 373 of his book. Reviews include: Nation, 84 (January 3, 1907), 15; New York Times Book Review, December 1, 1906, 824, with a well stated phrase: "Such a history is of particular value to put on record in a country which is passing through a transitory stage of eager endeavor and unattained ideals."; Independent, (June 20, 1907) 1469-70; Paul Leland Haworth, in Political Science Quarterly, 22 (June 1907), 331-32; Arthur Reed Kimball, "Professor Peck's >Twenty Years of the Republic'," Bookman, 24 (January, 1907), 473-77. 27.See Andrews, History, IV:202. James Ford Rhodes, "The Presidential Office," Scribner's Magazine, 33 (February, 1903), 157-73, summarizes his views. Sparks, National Development, 87-88, 327-29, 339, comments on Hayes, Arthur and Cleveland. See Andrews, The United States in Our Own Times, 347 on Cleveland in 1884. Dewey, National Problems, 138. See also Harry Thurston Peck, "President Cleveland," Bookman, 5 (April, 1897), 110-19. His "President McKinley," ibid., 14 (November, 1901), 275-80 rather summarizes the ambivalence about the president. Andrews has an extensive obituary-judgment of McKinley in History, V:286-94. 28.Rhodes opposed the war with Spain and expansion, and thought that McKinley could have avoided both. At the same time, he admired the president's use of public opinion, and thought that "his deductions from the meetings only confirmed what he had already determined."; see History, IX:102-03. Latanâ covered foreign affairs more closely than other authors; see his America as World Power, 3-81, 100 on markets. Wilson's quote is in History, V:296-300. 36 For Discussion 1. Ask students to explore the site and come to class ready to explain how they would have voted in the 1896 presidential race. You might divide the class into two groups, pro-McKinley and pro-Bryan, for debate. Would the students have been 100-percent satisfied with their presidential choice? If not, what sorts of compromises would they have had to make?2. Give each student a character to play: for example, a Nebraska farmer, an Irish-American Catholic priest in Cleveland, a Jewish shopkeeper in Philadelphia, a middle-class woman reformer in Colorado. Ask them to come to class prepared to explain how they would have voted and why. 3. Ask each student to pick one cartoon which explains why McKinley won the election--either because it is persuasive (Republican) or unpersuasive (Silver), and for whom. Ask them to come to class prepared to show the cartoons (by printout, or by URL if your classroom connects to the we(B) and defend their choices.4. "Free silver" was the central issue of the 1896 presidential campaign, but today the debates surrounding it may seem technical and obscure. Ask students to explore the site and explain why they think Americans cared so passionately about "honest money" and "free silver." What were the deeper meanings of these slogans?5. In the First Amendment, the U.S. Constitution declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This clause prevents government from interfering with religion, but it has never prevented religious leaders from expressing their views respecting government. Use the site to explore: Why were prohibition of liquor, immigration, and "free silver" considered religious issues? By whom, and what were the opposing views? 6. Use the cartoons to consider the prevailing views, in 1896, of: women; African-Americans; non-Christian religious minorities within the United States; non-Christians overseas (for example, in Turkey). (For an analysis of the uses of gender in political campaigns, see the book by one of this site's creators': Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era.) 7. Ask students to look closely at the circulation figures on the Journals page. How did the circulations of pro-McKinley and pro-Bryan journals compare? Which had more color pictures? Which, in your opinion, had more talented cartoonists? What might account for these discrepancies, and how might it have affected the outcome of the campaign? (You may wish to explore the changing nature of the newspaper industry in the 1890s, starting with the information on Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.)For Writing1. Building on discussion question #1 and #2, above: ask students to write letters to the editor, in their own voices or in the voices of their 1896 characters, seeking to persuade others to vote for the presidential candidate they have chosen.2. Ask students to write a sermon, to deliver on November 1, 3. Building on discussion question #6, above: ask students to generate a list of viewpoints that are not well represented on the site, especially in the cartoons. (Some examples might be: Southern African-American men, Chinese-American immigrants, industrial laborers, women of many ethnicities and religions). Ask them to write a letter to the editor representing an opinion from one of these groups.******************from "The Strength and Weakness of the People's Movement" (1892)Eva McDonald-Valesh The emergence of the People's party generated great interest within social and politcal reform circles across the country. The following article in the Boston-based Arena magazine focused on the need for the agrarian-based organization to make common cause with the urban working class. Its insights and warnings proved to be quite astute. ------------------------------------------------------------------------The rapid growth and popularity of the political movement known as the People's Party invest it with an importance that leads the general public to scan it closely for those indices which mark all truly great industrial movements. If it has not certain characteristics, it may excite those momentary outbursts of discontent emanating from a single class, only to die of inanition or be buried under a storm of well-directed ridicule. A political movement, to be an instrument of real industrial progress, ought to be general enough in its scope to embrace all classes of workers whose conditions are affected by the same general causes. Today there is the agricultural population, on one hand, producing more than enough to feed the world; on the other, the city workmen; producing, in their many occupations, more than enough to clothe and supply all other civilized needs of the race. The two classes are quite distinct, so far as environment is concerned; yet consuming each other's products and supplying both necessities and luxuries to all other classes, there is between them a bond of common interest, stronger than either realizes. Both classes, while conceding the immeasurable superiority of their present condition over that of their ancestors of any time, still feel that many differences are yet to be adjusted before industry attains the dignity warranted by the achievements and progress of the nineteenth century. Each division of the industrial body has various grades of expressed discontent with the present and hope for the future. . . . The two great bodies of organized discontent1 are working independently and by different methods on the same problemÑthe distribution of wealth. In the past, having observed so little their relations to each other, or the local conditions seeming to form a barrier between them, they now appear to have but faint sympathy or community of interest. It is of vast significance that the two organizations have the same reason for existing, and are trying to solve the same problem. Some combination of circumstances must soon reveal its community of purpose, and from that moment the workers of the farm and the factory will be bound by that strongest of ties, self-interest. The industrial world is becoming convinced that the People's Party will be this agent. The recent conference at St. Louis showed that a surprisingly large number of reform elements already agree on the general principles, leaving details to the future. . . . Still, to those familiar with industrial organization in cities, this conference revealed that the mass of city workers was unrepresented. Did this silence mean antagonism, even indifference, it might prove fatal to the success of the new movement. For if the People's Party, in its ultimate development, only represents a class, no matter how large that class, its work must necessarily partake of a sectional character, and from a lack of breadth and depth, fail to accomplish those great reforms which mark epochs of civilization. . . . A promising field of work open to view, although it still needs cultivation. Workingmen understand the value of the right of suffrage and its importance in securing industrial reform. They cannot fail to be keenly dissatisfied with the prospect held out by existing parties.2 The agricultural classes equally need just the elements that the cities could contribute. Each organization would be the gainer from close contact and interchange of views with the other. There is still an element wanting to insure harmonious action. It is a peculiarity of the People's movement that it has not yet produced a leader. It has teachersÑearnest, thoughtful, and progressive. It has statesmen of good parts. But a leader, in the true sense, is yet wanting. . . . A true leader can unite them in so irresistible a force that by a peaceful revolution of ballots, great abuses will be swept away and replaced by more equitable conditions inuring to the benefit of all society. Nor should such a coalition of the forces of farm and factory be feared by the most conservative. The world will advance, in spite of the remonstrances from those who are perfectly satisfied with the existing order. Reforms, working in peaceful and legitimate channels, are a sure guarantee against the violence which, in preceding eras, has so often accompanied popular movements. ------------------------------------------------------------------------1. Farmers and laborers.2. I. e., national political parties. ------------------------------------------------------------------------[From Eva McDonald-Valesh, ''The Strength and Weakness of the People's Movement,'' Arena 5 (May 1892):726-31.] [From F. B. Tracy, "Why the Farmers Revolted," Forum 16 (October 1893): 242Ð43.] Farmers are passing through the "valley and shadow of death"; farming as a business is profitless; values of farm products have fallen 50 per cent since the great war, and farm values have depreciated 25 to 50 per cent during the last ten years; farmers are overwhelmed with debts secured by mortgages on their homes, unable in many instances to pay even the interest as it falls due, and unable to renew the loans because securities are weakening by reason of the general depression; many farmers are losing their homes under this dreadful blight, and the mortgage mill still grinds. We are in the hands of a merciless power; the people's homes are at stake. . . . The American farmer of today is altogether a different sort of a man from his ancestor of fifty or a hundred years ago. . . . All over the West, . . . the farmer thrashes his wheat all at one time, he disposes of it all at one time, and in a great many instances the straw is wasted. He sells his hogs, and buys bacon and pork; he sells his cattle, and buys fresh beef and canned beef or corned beef, as the case may be; he sells his fruit, and buys it back in cans. . . . Not more than one farmer in fifty now keeps sheep at all; he relies upon the large sheep farmer for the wool, which is put into cloth or clothing ready for his use. Instead of having clothing made up on the farm in his own house or by a neighbor woman or country tailor a mile away, he either purchases his clothing ready made at the nearest town, or he buys the cloth and has a city tailor make it up for him. Instead of making implements which he uses about the farmÑforks, rakes, etc., he goes to town to purchase even a handle for his axe or his mallet; . . . indeed, he buys nearly everything now that he produced at one time himself, and these things all cost money. Besides all this, and what seems stranger than anything else, whereas in the earlier time the American home was a free home, unencumbered, . . . and whereas but a small amount of money was then needed for actual use in conducting the business of farming, there was always enough of it among the farmers to supply the demand, now, when at least ten times as much is needed, there is little or none to be obtained. . . . The railroad builder, the banker, the money changer, and the manufacturer undermined the farmer. . . . The manufacturer came with his woolen mill, his carding mill, his broom factory, his rope factory, his wooden-ware factory, his cotton factory, his pork-packing establishment, his canning factory and fruit-preserving houses; the little shop on the farm has given place to the large shop in town; the wagon-maker's shop in the neighborhood has given way to the large establishment in the city where men by the thousand work and where a hundred or two hundred wagons are made in a week; the shoemaker's shop has given way to large establishments in the cities where most of the work is done by machines; the old smoke house has given way to the packing house, and the fruit cellars have been displaced by preserving factories. The farmer now is compelled to go to town for nearly everything that he wants. . . . And what is worse than all, if he needs a little more money than he has about him, he is compelled to go to town to borrow it. But he does not find the money there; in place of it he finds an agent who will "negotiate" a loan for him. The money is in the East . . . five thousand miles away. He pays the agent his commission, pays all the expenses of looking through the records and furnishing abstracts, pays for every postage stamp used in the transaction, and finally receives a draft for the amount of money required, minus these expenses. In this way the farmers of the country today are maintaining an army of middlemen, loan agents, bankers, and others, who are absolutely worthless for all good purposes in the community. . . . These things, however, are on only the mechanical side of the farmer. His domain has been invaded by men of his own calling, who have taken up large tracts of land and farmed upon the plan of the manufacturers who employ a great many persons to perform the work under one management. This is "bonanza" farming. . . . The aim of some of the great "bonanza farms" of Dakota has been to apply machinery so effectually that the cultivation of one full section, or six hundred and forty acres, shall represent one year's work of only one man. This has not yet been reached, but so far as the production of the grain of wheat is concerned, one man's work will now give to each of one thousand persons enough for a barrel of flour a year, which is the average ration. . . . The manufacture of oleomargarine came into active competition with farm butter. And about the same time a process was discovered by which a substitute for lard was producedÑan article so very like the genuine lard taken from the fat of swine that the farmer himself was deceived by it. . . . From this array of testimony the reader need have no difficulty in determining for himself "how we got here." The hand of the money changer is upon us. Money dictates our financial policy; money controls the business of the country; money is despoiling the people. . . . These men of Wall Street . . . hold the bonds of nearly every state, county, city and township in the Union; every railroad owes them more than it is worth. Corners in grain and other products of toil are the legitimate fruits of Wall Street methods. Every trust and combine made to rob the people had its origin in the example of Wall Street dealers. . . . This dangerous power which money gives is fast undermining the liberties of the people. It now has control of nearly half their homes, and is reaching out its clutching hands for the rest. This is the power we have to deal with. . A. Peffer, The Farmer's Side (New York, 1891), pp. 42, 56, 58Ð63, 121Ð23.] ÊÊÊÊ Download 80.52 Kb. Share with your friends:
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