Whither Nineteenth-Century American History?

Abstract

12Historically Speaking April 2002 Daniel Walker Howe Whither Nineteenth-Century American History? How should 2 lst-century America view 19th-centuryAmerica? Every generation, we have come to expect, reinterprets its past in the light ofits own experience. During the past forty years we have witnessed dramatic changes in our discipline. Most notable has been the rise of the New Social History with all its ramifications , which include such varied and important developments as the use of gender as a categoryofanalysis, the redefinition ofWestern historyas die studyofa region rather dian a process, and a diorough transformation in the prevailing view of Reconstruction after the Civil War. In the excitement of die new, odier modes ofhistorical inquiry—political, diplomatic, economic, müitaryhistory—have been neglected or turned over to other disciplines . In presentingmyviews onwhere the study of19di-centuryAmerica might go next, I am talking primarily about what I believe historians should do, not trying to predict what diey will do. Actually, I feel reasonably sanguine about the prospects for 19th-century American historyin the comingyears, and die chances that my hopes for the discipline will be realized seem good. Unlike the early enthusiasts of the New Social History, I do not repudiate die previous generation's efforts or seek to jettison them. We can build upon dieir achievement and diat ofearlier generations . IfI could encapsulate myprescriptions for improving history into a single phrase, it would be: avoid arbitrarydivisions. One such unfortunate dichotomy is built into die very definition ofAmerican history, and thatis die splitbetween United States and all odierhistory . Fromjuniorhigh school on, students are taughthistoryin two separate compartments: American history and other (mainly European ) history. Mostcollege and universityhistory departments are bifurcated along diese linesin dieirpractical, everydayorganization. At die lower division level, die Americanists teach introductory courses in American history , while the odier colleagues teachWestern Civilization or World Civilization. U.S. history is seldom integrated into Western Civilization or World Civilization. Many practicing historians ofthe United States have relatively little training in other kinds ofhistory, and we tend to specialize more narrowlyman historians in other fields do. Too few of us try to keep up with work done in other areas ofhistory. Yetexperience has shown thatvery often the best work in American history has Thefinalartificial division I wish to see overcome is that between academic history andpopular history . been inspired by work done on odier countries , such as die guidance die FrenchAnnales School provided to die New Social History. American historians working in the United States compound dieirprovincial isolation by paying too little attention to die work done byhistorians ofthe United States outside die United States. For example, the wide-ranging and profound scholarship ofthe British historian William R. Brock on American history is scarcely known in the United States. Recent initiatives by the Organization of American Historians have undertaken to bridge diis divide, and I am pleased to see diat historians workingon the United States outside ofdie United States no longer feel quite so marginalized by dieir colleagues here. The organization ofthe historical profession around national identities is and should be headed for serious modification. For American historians, this means increasing attention to supranational contexts. Perhaps the most important of these at present is the Adantic World. David Brion Davis and Bernard Bailyn have taken a leading part in defining this field, but many odier historians have enriched die study ofeconomic, social, cultural, and diplomatic contacts and conflicts among the countries and continents bordering die Adantic. The Adantic slave trade, die Scottish-American Enlightenment, and die Anglo-American community ofhumanitarian reform are but three of the best known historical topics illuminated by the study of American history in an Atlantic context. Aldiough die studyofdie AdanticWorld has been carried outmore bycolonialists than by historians ofthe 19di century, in factwe have as much to learn from itas any. The 19th century was not the time ofAmerican isolation that it sometimes seems. Most economic and cultural developments ofdieVictorian age— whedierone is discussingdie industrial revolution , die relations between science and religion , the rise ofthe novel, or the women's suffrage movement—were transadantic in nature and cannot be understood in solely American terms. As globalization and migration continue to integrate the economies and cultures ofdie world...