Main currents in American thought An interpretation of American literature from the beginnings to 1920
psychology. In our economic realism we are returning to the spirit
of the eighteenth century, and adapting the determinism that marked
political thought from Harrington and John Adams to Webster and
Calhoun; but we are equipped with a psychological knowledge that those
earlier thinkers lacked. Wedding the new psychology to the older
economic determinism, we may hope in a spirit of sober realism to make
some progress in our thinking.
Yet not too hastily should we abandon our earlier faith: the
eighteenth-century conception of environment as a creative influence
in determining character is a vital idea not yet adequately explored.
Even morons may be traced back to adenoids or diets of salt pork
and whisky or to later machine labor, and aristocracies are still
seen to be economic. And aristocratic albinos may well breed mobs and
morons. Jefferson was not as foolish as many of his disciples have
been, and Jeffersonian democracy still offers hope. Education begins
to fail--except education to individualize and to summon forth the
potential intelligence of the younger generation.
Footnotes
[492] The Introduction, as will be readily seen by the reader, is
not complete, yet it undoubtedly contains the gist of what Professor
Parrington intended to include in it. He wrote several forms of some
parts, from which the Introduction as it stands has been pieced
together in logical order. It is probable that the last words he wrote
were the significant closing words here--“to summon forth the potential
intelligence of the younger generation.”--_Publisher._
Contents[493] [Volume Three]
Introduction: The Great Revolution xxiii
I. [A New America in the Making: Rise of capitalistic industrialism
submerging the older agrarianism, the Enlightenment,
the Jacksonian frontier]
II. [Aristocracy Dead: The principle of democracy accepted, yet
driving toward a plutocracy. A middle-class, urban
civilization]
III. [Cleavages: Western agrarianism; Eastern capitalism. The
South confused, bitter, hesitant. Expansion of the frontier
and the cities. The swift extension of the psychology of
the city]
IV. [Changing Patterns of Thought: (1) From the frontier came
the doctrine of preëmption, exploitation, progress; (2)
From the impact of science came the dissipation of the
Enlightenment and a spirit of realism; (3) From European
proletarian philosophies came a new social theory]
V. [Certain Drifts: to unity, to realism, to criticism]
Book I: Changing America
Changes in traditional economies after the Civil War. The rise of
American industrialism and the conquest of nature by science.
The age of the middle class. The last flare-up of the spirit of the
frontier 3
Part I
The Gilded Age
I. The American Scene 7
I. Free America: Half a continent awaiting preëmption; new
raw materials--oil, steel, copper, coal. A new technique
of exploitation--capital, transportation, machinery. Philosophy
embraced in three ideals: preëmption, exploitation,
progress 7
II. Figures of Earth: The flowering of Jacksonian frontier
spirit, simplified to the acquisitive instinct; a crude, dynamic
energy 10
III. Politics and the Fairy Godmother: The struggle within
the Republican Party; the gospel of Whiggery and the
triumph of the American System, Henry Clay 17
IV. The Great Barbecue: How capitalism and agrarianism
fared--the Homestead Act and railway grants. The shift
from governmental to private control 23
V. Folk Heroes 26
1. General Grant 27
2. Jay Cooke 31
3. Charles A. Dana 43
II. The Culture of the Seventies: With the decay of aristocratic
controls, a loss of unity. Three strands: aristocratic,
romantic, frontier 48
I. New England in Decay: The Genteel Tradition and the
drift away 50
1. Thomas Bailey Aldrich and the Genteel 54
2. The New England Scene: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps;
Harriet Beecher Stowe; Sarah Orne Jewett; Mary
Wilkins Freeman 60
II. The Afterglow of the Enlightenment--Walt Whitman 69
III. The Backwash of the Frontier--Mark Twain 86
III. Changing Theory: An agricultural people changing to an
urbanized people. The railways hasten economic development 102
I. Winds of Economic Theory: The conscription of economics:
The business man comes to the front 103
1. Henry C. Carey 105
2. Francis A. Walker 111
II. The Conscription of Political Theory: The democratic
and plutocratic trends. Development of the democratic
principle vs. the cult of the Constitution. New conception
of the political state 117
1. Theodore Woolsey 120
2. [John W. Burgess] 124
III. [The New Ally: The courts: the police power and the fourteenth
amendment; the injunction]
IV. [Buttressing the Democratic Theory]
1. A Democratic Economics--Henry George 125
2. [Supplementing the Democratic Political Theory--Henry
D. Lloyd]
IV. The Beginnings of Criticism: The pessimists skeptical of
democracy, the optimists calling for reform of the spoils
system. No competent critics of industrialism 137
I. The New England Conscience and Capitalism--Wendell
Phillips 140
II. Morality and Politics--George William Curtis 147
III. English Liberalism and Politics--Edwin Lawrence Godkin
and the _Nation_ 154
IV. Fiction Considers the State of the Country 168
1. The Political Novel: _The Gilded Age_; _Democracy_; _An
American Politician_ 169
2. [The Economic Novel: _The Bread-winners_] 173
3. The Beginnings of the Sociological Novel: H. H. Boyesen 179
Part II
New Patterns of Thought
I. Disintegration and Reintegration: Two forces creating
a new ideology, science and the machine. The decay of
the older theological, political mind, and the emergence
of an urban mind 189
I. The Victorian Mood--A genial optimism 193
1. Sociology and the Enlightenment: Condorcet,
Comte, and the gospel of progress 194
2. Biology and the Enlightenment: Spencer and the
philosophy of anarchism 197
3. The End of the Hopes of the Enlightenment 202
II. The School of Spencer--John Fiske 203
II. The Skepticism of the House of Adams: The flower of the
sturdy New England character. They fail to adjust to
the Gilded Age 212
I. Charles Francis Adams--The Business Failure 213
II. Henry Adams--Intellectual 214
III. Brooks Adams--Rebel 227
III. Victorian Realism: In the eighties realism begins to excite
interest and the movement gets under way, though the
American taste is still romantic. The psychology of the
dispersion marking America 237
I. [William James and Pragmatism]
II. Henry James and the Nostalgia of Culture 239
III. William Dean Howells and the Realism of the Commonplace 241
Book Two: The Old and the New: Storm Clouds
Part I
The Middle Border Rises
I. The Plight of the Farmer 259
I. Democratic Reactions to Plutocracy: The Middle Border
suffers. Two moods: Buoyancy, depression--the farmer
deflated. The economic problem 259
II. The Farmer Considers Politics: His intellectual
equipment--homespun theories derided by the schools. The
movement of organization: The Grange, The Alliance,
Populism. The flare-up of the nineties--the doctrine of
more corn and less hell 263
III. The Greenback Movement: The _laissez-faire_ theory
abandoned by English economists. American spokesmen: John
Sherman, David A. Wells, Eleazar Lord. Diverse theories
of money--the intrinsic-value theory and the quantitative
theory. The money question a heritage of the Civil War--a
debtor class and an appreciating standard of value 266
IV. Greenbackism and Peter Cooper 276
V. [Bi-metallism: A heritage of Jacksonian democracy: Ignatius
Donnelly, “Coin” Harvey]
II. The Democracy of the Age of Innocence 283
I. Capitalistic Encroachments: Due to inadequate democratic
machinery. The movement to democratize government.
Plutocracy content with the machine which it controlled;
hence radical proposals must issue from the
discontented. After 1870, with few exceptions, popular
democratic thinking done west of the Allegheny Mountains 283
II. Third-party Movements. A summary of democratic proposals
of previous movements 285
III. [The Populistic Program: Income tax; the initiative and
referendum; the recall; direct primary; Australian ballot;
popular election of Senators; sub-treasuries; proportional
representation]
IV. [William Jennings Bryan and the Last Battle]
III. Literature and the Middle Border 288
I. [Edward Eggleston and Frontier Realism]
II. [Whitcomb Riley and Folk Romance]
III. Hamlin Garland and the Middle Border. Joseph Kirkland,
Harold Frederic 288
Part II
Proletarian Hopes
I. [Plutocracy and the Workingman: Disruption of industry--strikes
and lockouts in the Gilded Age. Bitterness of
conflict. The discovery of the injunction]
I. [Industrialism and the American theory of freedom: Rise of
labor unions. Passing of the frontier. Incoming of German
Socialists and the recovery of the doctrine of class war
lost since the eighteenth century]
II. [The first solution--Syndicalism: T. V. Powderly and the
Knights of Labor]