The Declaration of Independence: A Global History

I have finally got around to reading David Armitage's excellent, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Harvard, 2007). You should read it too.

Armitage argues that too many scholars of the Declaration of Independence have focused on the "self-evident" truths of the second paragraph of the document and have not understood it for what it really was--a "declaration" of American "independence." In other words, the Declaration of Independence was not meant to serve as a declaration of individual rights as much as it was an assertion of American statehood in the world.

According the Armitage:

The Declaration was innovative in two ways that would have far-reaching consequences. First, it introduced "the United States of America" to the world' second it inaugurated the very genre of a declaration of independence." "Self-evident truths"; "all men are created equal"; "unalienable rights"; "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness": these are ringing words and noble sentiments, to be sure, but they are not in fact what the Declaration proclaimed in 1776. Even Abraham Lincoln, speaking in 1857, admitted The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain, and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use.

By arguing, with Lincoln, that the individual rights affirmed by the Declaration were meant for a "future use," Armitage is echoing and expanding upon the argument made in 1998 by Pauline Maier in American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. It was abolitionists, women's suffragists, and Lincoln himself who turned the Declaration into "American Scripture," a document that Americans turn to for the values that define them as a nation.

When the Declaration was made public in July 1776, most of the global discussion centered around the section dealing with the grievances against George III. Internationally, it served as a model for "the emerging international order of the late eighteenth century Atlantic world." This is why the Declaration was unique and worthy of discussion. The ideas in the second paragraph would have been quite common in the Atlantic world. Indeed, Jefferson and his committee of writers was not putting forth anything new or original when they talked about unalienable rights.

Armitage book is short--it can be read in an evening. Appendices include Declarations of Independence from other nation-states written in the wake of the American Revolution. This is a very helpful book. In addition to its innovative approach to interpreting the meaning of the Declaration, I hope to use it to teach historical thinking. While political scientists would certainly want to teach what the Declaration has come to mean to Americans over the years, historians must understand it in its eighteenth-century context. The eighteenth-century Declaration may not be politically useful to us today, but its proclamation of statehood, not its proclamation of individual rights, was what made it important in its time.

Dana Gioia at Messiah College, Part Two: Why Literature (and History!) Matters

During Dana Gioia's visit to Messiah College yesterday, he delivered a lecture to students and faculty entitled "Why Literature Matters."

This was his four point argument:

1). Literature matters because it awakens us to the fullness and possibilities of our humanity.

2). Literature matters because it enlarges our possibilities. For young readers it allows us to experience things imaginatively--like love and grief-- before we ever experience them in real life.

3). Literature matters because it enhances our sense of ourselves.

4). Literature matters because it refines us. It tells us who we are and what we believe to be true. It provides us with options about how to live and thus enables us to explore those options to see what type of life works well for us.

Gioia challenged the audience to cultivate an interior space where things happen apart from the world. The cultivation of such a space has the potential to transform us. By reading fiction, he argues, we engage in a "sustained meditation" of another person's life. Reading fiction teaches us that there are people who go through the same things that we do. Reading not only gives us a sense of individualism and personal destiny, but is also forces us to understand the plight of others. It enables us to be compassionate people.

I think Gioia is absolutely right, but I would also argue that well-written and well-taught HISTORY can do the same thing and may even be able to do it better. History has the power to transform us by forcing us to see that we are part of a larger human story. It forces us to move outside our own narcissism and see that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. It allows us to see the many ways that people have faced struggles and triumphs in their lives and thus gives a sense of the possibilities available to us as we lead our own lives.

Gioia's talk turned into a pep rally for English majors, but I would argue that history can accomplish everything that Gioia says literature can accomplish. And history is the study of things that really happened! Moreover, I wonder how many English majors in America today actually read literature?

Gioia at Messiah, Part One: Why Reading Matters

As I wrote about in my last post, Dana Gioia, a world-class poet and the outgoing Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts ,was at Messiah College yesterday. And what a treat it was!

During a talk and conversation with faculty from the School of Humanities, Gioia discussed a study on American reading habits conducted by the NEA. You can find a general overview of his findings in this video. The study concluded:

1). That we are in the process in the United States of producing the first generation in our history that is less well educated than their parents. Gioia described this trend as the "abandonment of the American ethos of self-improvement."

2). Adults ages 18-24, a demographic that used to read more than any other group, is now reading the least.

3). Americans are reading less and as a result they are reading less well. Today 31% of college graduates read at a proficiency (10th grade) level. In other words, the older that you are, the better you read.

4). Reading less well has personal, economic, civic, and educational consequences. If you read any type of literature you are 3-4 times more likely to do charity work. The poorest people who read do twice as much charity work as wealthy people who do not read. If you read you are more likely to exercise and vote. 51% of people who read below proficiency level are unemployed. (Only 3% of those in prison today read above proficiency level).

These facts are staggering. They have also been contested.

The electronics industry claims that they are not responsible for this decline in reading. But Gioia and his team has forced them to admit that the creators of video games never put more than 17 words on the screen at a time because if they do the players of these games will stop reading.

The publishing industry responded to Gioia's study by pointing to the fact that sales at bookstores have been rising. But upon closer examination, Gioia and his team found that sales of actual BOOKS have been decreasing every year. The rising sales in bookstores come from DVD's, calendars, and other non-book products.

Finally, libraries challenged Gioia's study by arguing that circulation at public libraries is up. But once again, the circulation is rising because of videos and DVD's, not books. When challenged with this data, the library lobby admitted that they lied out of fear that they might lose funding if they admitted that they were not lending as many books.

So why don't people read any more? Gioia offered a few suggestions:

1). Too many distractions. Brilliant people are getting paid a lot of money to come up with ways to distract people. And where do people find the time to go on the Internet or play computer games? Gioia says that people are replacing the time they spend with family and the time they spend reading with time on the computer. (Television watching has remained basically the same since the rise of the Internet).

2). Society does not value reading. Gioia joked about how many public service announcements for reading appear late at night and tend to feature athletes who themselves read below proficiency level.

3). Schools are not doing a good job of using literature to instill reading habits in kids, especially among boys.

4). Capitalism hurts reading because it puts a price on it. Gioia asks if there are things in the culture that we must protect from the market. What, in other words, is beyond price? The marketplace is just not suited to do certain things.

Well, there it is. Gioia is a great speaker and the question and answer session following his talk was lively.

Stay tuned for Part II of Gioia's visit to Messiah: "Why Literature Matters."

Why Reading Matters

Dana Gioia, the recent outgoing Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is on campus today. He will be speaking to humanities faculty this afternoon and giving a public lecture tonight entitled "Why Literature Matters." (7:30 in Hostetter Chapel). If you are a Messiah student you need to be there tonight!

In the meantime, check out Gioia in this 4 minute video: "Why Reading Matters." This is good stuff.

The American Revolution in Huntsville

This is my first trip to Huntsville, Alabama. As I mentioned in my last post, I came here to conduct a Gilder-Lehrman Institute Junior Historian's Forum on the coming of the American Revolution. My audience was 175 high school students from area schools.

Several highlights from the short trip:

1). I had forgotten that Huntsville was the home of the US Space and Rocket Center, the famed "Space Camp," and a host of other NASA-oriented facilities and centers.

2). The students from the Huntsville schools were VERY impressive. They were by far the best prepared students I have ever taught in one of these forums. Kudos to their teachers. I am guessing that some of these bright students are the sons and daughters of real rocket scientists

3). It was a pleasure working with Kathy White of Gilder-Lehrman, my host for the lecture. We were supposed to work together in Boca Raton last December, but things did not work out. It was good to finally meet her.

4). I had a wonderful ride to the hotel with Rhonda, a secretary in the school district. We had a great chat about her experience as a member of the Church of Christ denomination.

My Gilder-Lehrman work is now over for the fall, unless of course the phone rings between now and December. I now have a book to finish!

Ellen White and the Seventh Day Adventists

I am in Huntsville, Alabama tonight for a lecture on the coming of the American Revolution. The cab driver who took me from the airport to my hotel was a native of Antigua and a graduate of Oakwood University, a historically black Seventh Day Adventist school here in Huntsville.

When the driver learned that I was a historian he started waxing eloquent about the history of his denomination. I don't know much about the Seventh Day Adventist Church, but I have been learning some things from a few recent posts at Religion in American History on church founder Ellen White. Check out Randall Stephens's recent post on an Ellen White conference that just took place in Portland, Maine.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on the world wide web that caught my eye this week:

Chinese copies of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington?

An entire Episcopalian congregation converts to Catholicism.

Teaching students how to review a book.

A Georgetown sophomore is hiring a personal assistant.

Wikipedia historians.

Well behaved women DO make history: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wins Kennedy Medal.

David Voekler reviews Philip Gura, American Transcendentalism: A History

"Evangel": A new blog on evangelicalism.

Why do so many first year college students fail?

Making museums accessible to the visually impaired.

Tom Wright on "The Real Narnia."

Russell Shorto: The five best books on the history of New York City.

A Clear Sign that College Professors Do Not Get Paid Enough

Ocean Beach, NJ

The Levittown of the Jersey Shore

I am blogging today from an ocean front cottage at the Jersey shore town of Ocean Beach. It is a bit cloudy and windy, but the temperature is in the 60s and the roar of the Atlantic is keeping me company.

I am guessing that most of my readers--even those who grew up vacationing at the Jersey shore--have never heard of Ocean Beach. It is a small beach community on the Barnegat Peninsula near Lavallette. (Lavallette is between Point Pleasant and Seaside Heights). My family has been coming here for half a century and I try to continue the tradition by spending a few days here each October during the college's fall break.

Ocean Beach was founded in the 1950s by two developers who wanted to provide affordable beach houses for working-class families. Many of the earlier purchasers were World War II veterans who wanted their piece of the American Dream. They could buy a cottage at Ocean Beach for about $2000. When the Garden State Parkway was completed in 1955 sales took off. Ocean Beach is a stark contrast, for example, to the Barnegat peninsula mansions of Bay Head (a favorite spot for the Princeton crowd) and Mantoloking (where I believe Elizabeth Taylor used to own a house, but I could be wrong).

If you strike up a conversation with a homeowner or renter here you will find that everyone has a story about this place. Everyone takes pride in connecting themselves--either through relatives or friends--to the post-war development of the community. I have always thought about writing a history of Ocean Beach. The opportunities for oral history are phenomenal.

If I ever did write that book, I would describe Ocean Beach as the Levittown of the Jersey shore. The houses were affordable, they were built on the same basic plan, they continue to be extremely close to one another, and they offered a post-war generation the opportunity to have a house at the beach.

OK--enough blogging. The sun is starting to come out!

Public Humanities

Over at Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee reports on a recent gathering in Iowa City called "Platforms for Public Scholars." The event brought over 100 academics together to discuss how to bring the humanities to a public audience. (The article also called my attention to a group called "Imagining America" which is trying to do the same thing). I wish I knew about this gathering. I would have tried to attend.

Many academics are very suspect about working with public audiences. It seems that one of the major issues prohibiting this type of public scholarship is the refusal of many (most?) colleges and universities to count this kind of work towards promotion and tenure. Should historians who speak to retirement homes or work with local history projects receive professional credit for their work? Does conducting seminars for school teachers, writing op-eds, or teaching literature to inner-city kids merit a line on the c.v.?

This is a tough call. It would seem that "public scholars," like any scholars, should do work that proves their credentials as scholars. This means that public scholars of the humanities should be experts in a field or discipline. They should have earned a terminal degree (usually the Ph.D) in that particular discipline. They should also have demonstrated an ability to do first rate scholarship by speaking to the members of their discipline through academic journal articles and/or monographs.

Of course "public scholars" are distinguished from non-public scholars for the work they do in the community and in the way they bring their disciplines to bear on people who are not scholars. While this kind of public scholarship should not be the ONLY thing considered by tenure and promotion committees, it should certainly count.

One of the things I have always appreciated about Messiah College is the administration's respect for public scholarship. This is what the late Ernie Boyer--the head of the education commission under Jimmy Carter, first executive dean of the SUNY system, president of the Carnegie Foundation, and Messiah alumnus--has called the "scholarship of engagement." (I should add that my office is located in Boyer Hall).

Many humanities scholars at Messiah do their "scholarship of engagement" through the college's Center for Public Humanities, a center which was recently funded by a large grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Through the Center for Public Humanities, Messiah professors lead college level courses for inner-city and rural adults in Harrisburg and nearby Perry County. They also conduct content-based workshops for secondary school educators. The Center sponsors a host of public lectures throughout the year and hosts Messiah's annual "Humanities Symposium" each February.

It seems to me that all colleges and universities need centers like this to pull their scholars out of the ivory tower and connect them with ordinary people, many of who are eager to learn from their expertise. I am glad to see that there are folks in Iowa (and elsewhere) who are thinking deeply about these issues.

Is the Reformation Over?

A few years ago Mark Noll asked this question in light of the recent cordial relations between evangelicals and the Roman Catholic Church. Now we need to ask this question again in light of the Vatican's recent attempt to get conservative Anglicans to cross the Tiber.

The Vatican is trying to win over Anglicans who are dissatisfied with Canterbury's allowance of female and homosexual priests. They want to make it easier for these Anglicans to commune with Rome.

While I am sure there will be some who will take the Pope up on his offer, I am guessing that most Anglicans will not. Conservative Anglicans in places like Africa have not been threatened by the kinds of changes to the priesthood that have been predominant in the United States. They would have no reason to leave--a point made by Philip Jenkins in the New York Times article linked above.

Many conservative Anglicans in the United States have already left the Episcopal Church. They have aligned themselves with African bishops and affiliated with organizations such as the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion (CANA). Many of these conservative Anglican groups are quite evangelical in theology. In other words, they are not only conservative/traditional on moral and gender issues, but they are also Protestant conservatives who have fundamental theological disagreements with the Roman Catholic Church. For them, the Reformation is not over, although they would certainly feel more comfortable engaging in fellowship with conservative Catholics than liberal Episcopalians or other liberal Protestants.

However one spins things, this is a very interesting development.

WWTFFT?

Historiann has nailed it again. In today's post she takes on Newt Gingrich and anyone else who has used the phrase "the Founding Fathers believed...." or "What Would the Founding Fathers Think" (WWTFFT). As Historiann shows, the early republic was a politically contentious period. These so-called "Founders" did not speak with one voice.

While it is ahistorical and somewhat irresponsible to try to compare the Obama administration to the political beliefs of any eighteenth-century statesman, it is not out of the question that some of the founders would have been pleased to see government playing an active role in the economy. Fiscal conservatives like Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists favored big government. Thomas Jefferson, the great defender of individual rights and separation of church and state, was a libertarian. (At least Jefferson was a consistent libertarian. He believed that government should stay out of people's lives, including their religious and moral lives. Today's conservatives tend to be libertarian on fiscal matters, but pro-government on moral issues).

Many of my students are shocked to find that two revolutionaries--John Adams and Thomas Paine--had such different views on the role the people should play in government. Wait a minute, weren't Adams and Paine both "Founding Fathers?" Yes, I guess you could say that. But this did not stop Adams from having a few choice words for Paine.

I know not whether any Man in the World has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine. There can be no Severer Satyr on the Age. For Such a mongrel between Pigg and Puppy, begotten by a wild Boar on a Bitch Wolf, never before in any Age of the World was Suffered by the Poltroonery of mankind, to run through Such a Career of Mischief. Call it then the Age of Paine.

Adams described Paine's Common Sense as "a poor, ignorant. Malicious, short-sighted Crapulous Mass." (Modern translation: it was a piece of crap).

Such quotes should cause us to think twice the next time we clump the Founders together in some sort of homogeneous mass and try to announce what they would have believed on any given contemporary political issue. This kind of consensus approach to the founding is bad history.

Check out Historiann's post and the insightful remarks from her regular cast of commentators.

Messiah College Athletics Featured in USA Today Sports Section

I often get a lot of questions about what it is like to teach at Messiah College. I love teaching at Messiah, but I realize it is not for everyone. Messiah is a Christian college. Faculty must sign the Apostles Creed. Students must attend twenty-four chapel services a semester and sign a "community covenant" that sets boundaries on their moral behavior.

Despite such demands placed on faculty and students, Messiah is not a fundamentalist college. Neither is it a politically conservative school. Messiah IS NOT part of the Religious Right. In fact, we hosted Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Pennsylvania presidential primary. (There is much confusion about this in the press. Many lump Messiah together with places like Pat Robertson's Regent University and Jerry Falwell's Liberty University). Actually, the school's roots are in the nineteenth century evangelical social justice movement, the eighteenth-century pietist movement, and the Anabaptist pacifist tradition. (The college's commitment to the latter tradition means that it does not fly an American flag on campus).

The justice, pietist, and pacifist traditions that inform Messiah's past mean that our students are sometimes more concerned with activism than intellectual life. I must admit that at times I wonder if a "pietist, activist, pacifist college" is an oxymoron. Yet there are bastions of the college in which the life of the mind and the tradition of liberal arts education thrives. For example, I would put our history department up against any top notch liberal-arts college in the country--both in terms of teaching and scholarship. (OK--I am probably a bit biased here, but I still believe that the Messiah history department is really a hidden gem! If you don't believe me, check out our department webpage).

Most of our students come from evangelical backgrounds. Many of them are very pious and this often translates into their performance on the athletic fields. The Christian character of our students and athletic department are on display for the nation today in a feature article on Messiah in the sports section of USA TODAY. The Messiah athletic program is truly remarkable. The men's soccer team has won six NCAA Division III national championships since 2000. The women's soccer team has won two national championships. Both won the national championship in 2005 and 2008. The women's team is currently ranked #1 in the nation, while the men are currently #3. Last spring the softball team took home its first NCAA Division III national championship. The field hockey team has been to twelve "final fours" since 1984 and six title games. They are still looking for their first national championship and are currently ranked #1 in the nation. Messiah's girls basketball team has been to two NCAA title games since 2000 and have been ranked #1 in the nation multiple times.

Check out the USA Today article to learn more about this high powered NCAA Division III athletic program.

What to Do at an Academic Conference

I don't go to many academic conferences any more. Perhaps when I make some substantial headway on my next major research project I will hit the conference circuit again, but for now my writing and speaking has focused more on popular audiences.

Yet I do believe academic conferences are important. While I was a graduate student I attended them and presented at them frequently. Back then I could have really used an essay like Eszter Hargittai's "Conference Do's and Don't's.

I have never been much of a cold-turkey networker so I would spend conferences trying to attend as many panels as possible. I would feel guilty if I did not attend a session during every time slot. I never really tried to meet important senior scholars in my field because I had a strong aversion to sucking up to them. These scholars are busy and don't need a bunch of young sycophants following them around in the hopes of getting them to read a dissertation chapter. So rather than trying to find a seat at a high powered dinner, I was more than satisfied eating with graduate school friends who, like me, were on a budget.

According to Hargittai, I did absolutely nothing right. I was clearly not getting the most out of my conference experience and was not advancing my career in any significant way. I can't disagree with him.

The bottom line is that conferences have never been my thing. I hate the name-tag staring, the pretentiousness, the bombarding of book editors with half-baked proposals, and the general parading of the professional classes in the halls of big city conference centers. When I go to a conference today I normally attend one or two conference sessions a day, hang out with friends, spend considerable time in the book exhibit, meet with a few younger scholars who have contacted me in advance, try to see some sites in the city, order room service, and occasionally take a nap.

I prefer to take in the conference on my own terms. It is less stressful.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my attention this week:

Barbara Ehrenreich on the paradox of declining female happiness.

Bob Herbert on why baseball is no longer America's democratic pastime.

John Calipari: Rock star in Lexington.

New Books in History

A case against blogging

Mark Peterson on the American Revolution in film.

Jon Stewart on the Al Franken anti-rape bill. Hilarious and sad at the same time.

Can wisdom be taught?

History Twitter feeds

Brendan McConville lecture on loyalists during the American Revolution.

There's No Place Like Home

Newsweek is running a great piece on the "new localism," the phrase used to describe the manner in which Americans are becoming less mobile and more rooted.

Thriving neighborhood restaurants are one small data point in a larger trend I call the new localism. The basic premise: the longer people stay in their homes and communities, the more they identify with those places, and the greater their commitment to helping local businesses and institutions thrive, even in a downturn. Several factors are driving this process, including an aging population, suburbanization, the Internet, and an increased focus on family life. And even as the recession has begun to yield to recovery, our commitment to our local roots is only going to grow more profound. Evident before the recession, the new localism will shape how we live and work in the coming decades, and may even influence the course of our future politics.

It seems as the "Way of Improvement" is leading "Home" at an increasing rate these days. I can't help but think the late Christopher Lasch (and Philip Vickers Fithian) would have been pleased with this trend. Over at Front Porch Republic, Russell Arben Fox (fitting surname for a guy who teaches at a place called Friends University) defends Lasch's vision against the naysayers. He reminds us that Lasch's brand of conservatism (if you can call it that) has never been easy to figure out.

So readers of Lasch–perhaps especially Front Porch Republic readers of Lasch, drawn to him because of his populist case for an economy of producers, a society of communities and neighborhoods and families–remain confused. He praises Progressive reforms, but attacks the dole. He speaks glowingly of strikes and labor unrest, and calls it all “conservative.” How to defend such a person, when you don’t know which direction the target is facing when attacks come from left and right?

We can expect some help in making sense of Lasch from Eric Miller's forthcoming biography: Hope in Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch (Eerdmans, 2010).

Why I Have One of the Best Jobs in America

CNN/Money Magazine lists the 5o best jobs in America. Mine is #3. Here is why:

For starters, major scheduling freedom. "Besides teaching and office hours, I get to decide where, when, and how I get my work done," says Daniel Beckman, a biology professor at Missouri State University. And that doesn't even take into account ample time off for holidays and a reduced workload in the summer.

Yes, we professors have it made. But don't forget that we had to spend the first 5-7 years out of college living as poor graduate students while earning a Ph.D. (Or, as my working class extended family calls it, a "post-hole digger!").

The Religious Right Has Been Around for a Long Time

Over at Front Porch Republic Darryl Hart takes on the sloppy scholarship of those who try to discredit the Religious Right by connecting its members with theocrats and theonomists. He makes the case that those who believe America is a "Christian nation" have been around for a long time. Hart writes:

...But the point of this kvetch is not to weigh the brain mass of conservatives and liberals but to bring up a subject that religious historians should be teaching to the rest of the American population from their lecterns, articles, books, and blogs – it is that the Religious Right is nothing new in U.S. history and that scaring citizens with the apparently bizarre proposals of Christian conservatives is bad scholarship. Prior to the Religious Right, Protestants, whether liberal or fundamentalist, concocted various schemes to preserve the United States as a Christian (read: Protestant) nation, from the Civil War, to Prohibition, to the civil religion of the Cold War. During that time, Protestants had access to all sorts of presidents, even the ones who had their finger poised on the button to drop “the bomb.” John Foster Dulles may have mingled with a tonier set than Carl McIntire (though Dulles certainly did not wear a better suit), but his anti-communism and God-and-country outlook were not substantially different from fundamentalist anti-Communists like McIntire.

Hart is right. I am in the midst of making a similar argument in an essay on the history of the idea that America is a Christian nation. It will appear as the first chapter in my forthcoming "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Primer." This idea is as old as the republic itself.

Popular Historians and "Historian's Historians"

I was recently reading a short biography of Princeton Civil War historian James McPherson in the Summer 2009 newsletter of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. (It was recently announced that McPherson has won the NJCH lifetime achievement award. I would also be remiss if I did not add that The Way of Improvement Leads Home was chosen as an NJCH "Honor Book" in 2009.).

Here is a passage from the NJCH blurb on McPherson:

“A colleague at a California university recently remarked to me that I would be forced to choose between becoming a ‘popular historian’ or a ‘historian’s historian.’ He strongly hinted that I was in danger of becoming the former,” wrote James M. McPherson in 1995. “Why couldn’t I be both?” McPherson responded. “Surely it is possible to say something of value to fellow professionals while at the same time engaging a wider audience.”

"Forced to choose?" "Danger?"

Frankly, there are far too many so-called "historian's historians" out there who think this way. Kudos to James McPherson for a career well spent in the service of both academia and the general public.

Milwaukee

I spent two great days with history teachers and history students from the Milwaukee Public School District. Thanks to the indomitable Anthony Napoli for once again inviting me to do a session on women and children in colonial America for the Gilder-Lehrman Institute. I also want to thank Tina and Jennie, the coordinators for the district's Teaching American History grant, for being great hosts.

Yesterday we had a morning session with about 30 or so teachers and this morning I spoke to about 500 kids, grades 5-12, on the what it was like to be a kid in colonial America. The session was held in the Weasler Auditorium at Marquette University.

During the talk I offered five possible options for what life would have been like for my audience if they lived in British North America prior to the American Revolution. Here were their options: Child of the Covenant, Tobacco Kid, Tender Plant, Native Son or Daughter, and Children of Slaves. I even managed to get some Philip Vickers Fithian into the lecture!

I was very impressed with the attention span of the students. Kudos to the 5th grade classes sitting in the front 6 or 7 rows who really asked some thoughtful questions.

Slavery and the University of Maryland

Inside Higher Ed reports on the findings of a year-long study to uncover the University of Maryland's ties to slavery. The study, conducted by noted historian of slavery Ira Berlin and the students in his two semester course on slavery at Maryland, concluded that slaves did not build or work at the institution, but many of the university's prominent founders were indeed slaveholders.

Colonial Women and Children in Milwaukee

Today I am in Milwaukee doing a Gilder-Lehrman seminar for school teachers on women and children in colonial America. I am going to be focusing on native American, African, and European women and children in the Chesapeake, the Middle Colonies, and New England.

Tomorrow I am doing a "Junior Historian's Forum" on the same subject with over 500 students from the Milwaukee area.

Stay tuned...

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my eye this week:

Messiah College turns 100. President Kim Phipps and Provost Randy Basinger weigh in.

Seth Dowland interview with David Swartz and Brantley Gasway on the evangelical left.

Randall Stephens on the "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" Conference at Gordon College, including an interview with Mark Noll.

What happens to the papers of dead historians?

Free history lectures.

Gina Barreca challenges stereotypes of Italian-Americans.

Jim Cullen on the last Springsteen concert at Giants Stadium.

Reactions to Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Did he win it for bringing together Gates and Crowley?

What happened to the mustache?

John Turner reviews Stephen Miller, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South.

Is Sarah Palin the new leader of the GOP religious wing?

Cape May County Library

I spent the afternoon in Cape May, New Jersey where I was part of an author's roundtable at the Cape May County Library. The panel included an eclectic group of authors, including a writer who specializes in poems about love, a photographer who worked on a book about Holocaust survivors in South Jersey, and an English teacher who wrote a novel about the leader of a New Jersey rock band whose mother murdered a former Nazi.

And then there was me and Philip Vickers Fithian!

On the Way to Cape May Again...

This time for a New Jersey authors roundtable tomorrow at the Cape May County Library in Cape May Court House. If you are in the area stop by and say hello.

Does the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution Have Judeo-Christian Roots?

I was recently asked by a non-profit organization in the thick of the Texas Social Standards debate to give my opinion on whether or not schoolchildren should learn that the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution had "Judeo-Christian" roots.

Here is a version of my answer. I am curious to hear what my readers think about this. Remember, I am writing about what students should learn about these documents in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms.

The Declaration of Independence: It seems to me that history students must know PRIMARILY that the Declaration of Independence was just that--A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM GREAT BRITAIN. While it contains many important philosophical ideas about natural rights, it was primarily a means to announce to the world that the British colonies would no longer be subject to English rule. This means that the grievances listed in the Declaration should be just as much of a concern--if not more of a concern--to the student of history as the prologue. It must be studied in the context of the period between 1763 and 1776 and the events, taxes, etc... leading up to independence. Sometimes we get so caught up with the political philosophy of the Declaration that we forget the primary reason why the document was written. In fact, as Pauline Maier has argued in a fabulous book entitled *American Scripture*, the Declaration of Independence was not perceived as a philosophical treaty about natural rights, or an "American Scripture," until the nineteenth century.

Students in civics classes, however, WILL need to address the political philosophy of the document. (This is ultimately the bailiwick of a political philosopher and not a historian, but I will take a shot at it). The Declaration mentions or references God four times, but it is certainly not a document that is overtly Christian in any way. It does not mention Jesus Christ or the Resurrection or the Trinity. The God of the Declaration is a generic one--"nature's God." In this sense, the Declaration of Independence might be perceived as a "theistic" document, but not a uniquely Judeo-Christian document.

Having said that, Jefferson and the committee who wrote the Declaration did affirm that natural rights came from God. In other words, they affirmed that God is the author of the natural rights afforded to all people. Recently scholars such as Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale) and John Witte Jr. (Emory) have suggested that the idea of human rights stems from longstanding Christian principles drawn, for example, from Genesis, chapter one (the Imago Dei) or the idea that we are all created in the image of God and thus have inherent worth and value. I am in the process of reading this material, but so far these authors make a decent argument that the Western idea of human rights is at the very least compatible with historic Christianity's understanding of the human rights. And since Christianity played such a dominant role in the history and culture of the West, one could make a legitimate argument that natural rights do have some Judeo-Christian roots. (This, of course, does not take away from the more secular and Enlightened views of people like Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu). So when it comes to the Declaration and its political philosophy, I am not sure I would disagree with the idea that Judeo-Christian ideals were in the mix, but not in any direct way.

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION and CONSTITUTION: Since both of these documents are largely frames of government, it is more difficult to connect Judeo-Christian ideas to them. David Barton and company have made the argument that ideas such as the separation of powers come from Old Testament passages. I have no idea where they are getting this from. It is certainly not something that legitimate scholars argue and, in my opinion, does not merit inclusion in social studies standards. None of the framers of the Constitution made appeals to scripture to justify checks and balances or branches of government.

The Articles do make reference to God. The Constitution does not. As far as the First Amendment is concerned, one could make a convincing argument that the religious freedom and liberty of conscience embedded in the First Amendment could be rooted in religious ideas such as the Imago Dei. One could also argue that Roger Williams and William Penn promoted this idea as well. (Both were very religious men--Williams a Puritan, Penn a Quaker). Yet I find it difficult to reconcile an argument about religious freedom (even it is rooted in Christian ideals about human dignity and divinely ordained rights) with the idea that America is a "Christian nation."

The need for checks and balances in the Constitution DOES presume a negative/dour view of human nature, as James Madison argued in Federalist 10. The view that human beings are prone to self-interest and in need of governmental checks to control self-interest is certainly compatible with a Calvinist view of the depravity of humankind. But the connections between Federalist 10 and Calvinism is, as I see it, not a strong one (this despite Madison's training at Princeton under the Calvinist minister John Witherspoon). Moreover, while Madison argues that human beings are by nature prone to self-interest, his way of solving this problem was to create a strong central government in order to curb self-interest or make sure that one's self-interest does not trump the self-interest of somebody else. I am not sure that libertarian capitalists like Barton would be happy with the idea that government is the best way to deal with the natural self-interest of humans.

As for the Articles of Confederation it seems that any attempt to try to find Judeo-Christian roots in this document is missing the entire point of the document. History students should study the Articles to see the way in which the fear of centralized government after the American Revolution led to the creation of a weak central government that gave virtually all the power to the states. I have no qualms with students studying the political philosophy behind the Articles, but this document is better taught historically in the context of Revolutionary political history.

Back at Bethany Village

I was in familiar territory tonight with the good folks at Bethany Village in Mechanicsburg. I have been speaking there once or twice a year for about five years now. My topic tonight was "George Washington, the Cherry Tree, and Other Myths About the Father of Our Country." I focused on four prominent myths about Washington:

1). The myth of Washington and the cherry tree
2). The myth of Washington praying at Valley Forge
3). The myth of Washington the evangelical Christian
4). The (partial) myth of Washington the civic humanist

During the Q&A many of them wanted to call attention to Washington's greatness as a counterweight to the content of my talk, but they also understood that my talk was more about the construction of Washington as "father of our country" than it was about the character of the man during his lifetime. As one might imagine, we spent a considerable amount of time talking about Mason Locke "Parson" Weems.

The residents of Bethany Village are a great audience. During the refreshment time following the talk I was entertained with stories about George Washington's teeth (from a retired dentist who also gave me four tubes of toothpaste to bring home to my family), a childhood play in which a resident once played George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, and multiple stories of visits to Mount Vernon. As usual, I left with a plate of cookies and some potential topics for another talk. It was great night.

Teaching the American Revolution in Monroe, Louisiana

I am in Monroe, Louisiana today co-conducting a "Teaching American History" seminar with elementary and middle-school teachers from Monroe, Louisiana and the surrounding rural school districts. I am working with John McNamara of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School in New Jersey. I spent the morning lecturing on the "Origins of the American Revolution" and John, a master teacher and fine historian in his own right, is currently lecturing on how to teach the Revolution.

The teachers here seem to be starving for content and pedagogical training. As part of the training I put together a few web resources that might be useful in teaching the Revolution.

Here is the list:

•African Americans and the American Revolution
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/title.html
•Lesson Plans from the Massachusetts Historical Society
http://www.masshist.org/revolution/
•John Adams-Abigail Adams Correspondence
http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea/letter/
•American Revolution Document Library (Ashland College)
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?category=1
•Gilder-Lehrman Historical Document Collection
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/
•Gilder-Lehrman Podcasts on Founding Era
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/historians/podcasts/
•Library of Congress: American Memory (Maps and Charts of Revolutionary Era)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/armhtml/armhome.html
•Library of Congress: American Memory (Documents from Continental Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/continental/
•Library of Congress: Religion and the American Founding
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/
•Colonial Williamsburg Lesson Plans on American Revolution
http://www.history.org/history/teaching/classroom_plans.cfm

Thanks to John Kemp of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities who runs the grant and for the local school district here for hosting us.

In Defense of the Great Books

It was a summer morning sometime between sixth and seventh grade. I woke up and heard an adult voice in the kitchen. It was not my Dad. The voice was familiar, but I could not place it. I threw on some clothes and made my way down the stairs to the kitchen only to find my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Fischer, sitting at the table with my Mom. The table was filled with opened boxes of cereal, a carton of milk, half-eaten bowls of Rice Krispies , and crumbs from pieces of toast. Clearly my brothers had already passed through for breakfast. My Mom was trying to calm my newly born sister and at the same time carry on a civil conversation with Mr. Fischer. He was dressed in a suit and tie with a briefcase full of brochures. I was somewhat embarrassed as I greeted my former teacher. It was obvious that I had just rolled out of bed. I was also a bit irritated that my school world and summer world had collided in the family kitchen.

As it turns out, Mr. Fischer was selling World Book encyclopedias and seemed to be a making a rather compelling sales pitch. Later my Mom would say that she only bought the encyclopedias to get Mr. Fischer out of the house, but I knew that that was not the whole story. Though we were a working-class family, my mother was always concerned about the intellectual growth of her kids (although she would not have put it that way).

My brothers and I devoured our World Book encyclopedias. We would not only use them for school reports and papers, but we often read them for fun. To this day, more than thirty volumes, with their brown and black covers, still sit on my parent's bookshelf.

I thought about my Mom and the World Book encyclopedia today when I read W.A. Pannapacker's essay "Confessions of Middlebrow Professor." Though he was also raised in a working-class home, Pannapaker's upbringing seemed to be a lot more cultured mine. But I can relate to his parents' concern that he have access to great ideas. In his case, it was a 54 volume set of the "Great Books of the Western World." Pannapacker reminds us that the Great Books series, edited by Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins, were popular among the post-World War II rising middle class. They served as "expressions of hope for many people who had historically not had access to higher education." I can't help but think, at some level, this may have been what my mother had in mind when she bought us our World Books. Both the Great Books collection and the World Book encyclopedia were visible signs--on the bookshelf for all to see-- of social mobility.

The Great Books are often criticized for being racist and sexist. This is certainly a legitimate criticism. I am sure a close reading of my parent's World Book encyclopedia would reveal similar problems. Yet, call me nostalgic or overly conservative, but I agree with Pannapacker that there may still be some worth in recovering parts of the world in which the Great Books were first published. Pannapacker writes (the mention of "Jacoby" is a reference to Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason):

The Great Books—along with all those Time-Life series—were often "purchased on the installment plan by parents who had never owned a book but were willing to sacrifice to provide their children with information about the world that had been absent from their own upbringing," Jacoby writes. They represented an old American belief—now endangered—that "anyone willing to invest time and energy in self-education might better himself."

What has been lost, according to Jacoby, is a culture of intellectual effort. We are increasingly ignorant, but we do not know enough to be properly ashamed. If we are determined to get on in life, we believe it will not have anything to do with our ability to reference Machiavelli or Adam Smith at the office Christmas party. The rejection of the Great Books signifies a declining belief in the value of anything without a direct practical application, combined with the triumph of a passive entertainment —as anyone who teaches college students can probably affirm.

For all their shortcomings, the Great Books—along with many other varieties of middlebrow culture—reflected a time when the liberal arts commanded more respect. They were thought to have practical value as a remedy for parochialism, bigotry, social isolation, fanaticism, and political and economic exploitation. The Great Books had a narrower conception of "greatness" than we might like today, but their foundational ideals were radically egalitarian and proudly intellectual.

I have read several of the works in the "Great Books" collection, but I have always wanted to read them through in a systematic way. Perhaps someday this will happen. But in the meantime, does anyone have a 54 volume set that want to sell me?

Michael Moore, Capitalism, and Jesus

Michael Moore is a polarizing figure. Just insert his name into any civil conversation and watch the level of civility decline. Whether he is railing on the health-care system, the gun-culture that may or may not have contributed to the Columbine shootings, or the foreign policy decisions of the Bush administration, Moore is controversial.

I have not seen Moore's new documentary-movie: "Capitalism: A Love Story," but there seems to be an interesting religious dimension to the whole thing. Moore apparently argues that the teachings of Jesus and capitalism are incompatible. Would Jesus refuse to heal a sick man because he had a pre-existing condition? This kind of language is bound to tick people off.

At Progressive Revival, Paul Rauschenbush reviews Moore's approach. Rauschenbush briefly traces that history of the WWJD movement and then offers some praise for the film:

The real value of the film "Capitalism: A Love Story" is that Mr. Moore turns the spotlight on places in America of suffering and degradation that we would rather ignore. Some of the scenes of eviction are too painful to watch and your heart aches for the people in their struggles. This is where the true Christian message finds its most potent voice as it is in those very struggles where we find Christ, and it is in those places that Christians must serve. Jesus is not in the houses of the wealthy and the comfortable, he is in the suffering cries and crisis of the poor. If the church should be anywhere, it is there proclaiming release to the captives and redemption of the oppressed.

But Rauschenbush also echoes the kind of criticism often levied against anti-capitalist pundits like Moore:

Moore's film isn't clear what system he is suggesting to replace capitalism. Instead of socialism he suggests democracy (a system of governance for which an editor from the Wall Street Journal has stated his distaste earlier in the film.) But does democracy cover it? Moore promotes small, self owned cooperative businesses, safeguarded by a supportive government that provides for the basic needs (rights) of the population. But Mr. Moore's answer to the problem of capitalism is never completely clear. He seems happy with leaving it to the democratic process to come up with the solutions.

The bottom line is that we are stuck with capitalism--an economic system that celebrates the dignity and creative spirit of individuals while at the same time promoting self-interest and a version of human happiness that more often than not runs counter to the teachings of Jesus.

I look forward to seeing Moore's movie.

NOTE: For more on Moore's movie, check out Phil Sinitiere's recent post over at Religion and American History.

Sunday Nights Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my eye this week:

Did Obama's visit to Copenhagen hurt Chicago's chances for the 2016 Olympic Games?

Review of Paul Schaffer's memoir. I wonder how the recent Letterman scandal will impact sales?

I like this idea. We need more Teaching American History grants like it.

Gilder-Lehrman's History Now on the American Revolution featuring essays by Carol Berkin, R.B. Bernstein, Holly Mayer, Ray Raphael, Colin Calloway, Woody Holton, and Isaac Kramnick.

Stan Katz: Liberal arts in a prep school.

Springsteen at Giants Stadium.

Is Protestantism responsible for atheism?

Jeff Pasley on "bundling."

Jackson Lears on the "usefulness of cranks."

The Founders on health care.

In Character on "wisdom."

David Swartz reviews Peter Goodwin, Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race & American Politics .

Philip Vickers Fithian Fan Club on Facebook

It is time for another membership drive for the Philip Vickers Fithian Fan Club on Facebook. The club has 59 members, but I know that there are a lot more people who have read the book and are on Facebook.

Members can keep up to date with all things Philip Vickers Fithian and be informed about special deals on The Way of Improvement Leads Home. Why would anyone NOT join this exciting Facebook group?!!!

Join today!

A Day With Mayflower Descendants

After The Way of Improvement Leads Home appeared in 2008, I began to receive invitations to speak at ancestral societies connected with the American Revolution. I usually accept the invitations. Philip Vickers Fithian is a character of special interest to groups like the Sons of the American Revolution and the Society of the Cincinnati.

Today I spent the afternoon speaking about Fithian to the First Colony (south Jersey) chapter of The Society of Mayflower Descendants of the State of New Jersey. Thanks to Jane Engleman for inviting me to speak.

A few observations:

1). With the exception of two young boys who came with their mother (a new inductee to the society) and their father, I believe I was the youngest person in the room.

2). I learned about the strict membership requirements of this society. Each local chapter has a "historian" who goes over an applicant's family tree with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that he or she is indeed a descendant of one of the 104 Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620.

3). All the members of the society call themselves "cousins." At one point a member asked all of the "Bradford cousins" to stand up and greet one another. (I am assuming that this was a reference to the members related to Plymouth governor William Bradford).

4). There is a clear "God and Country" mentality among this group. The meeting starts with the ushering in of a U.S. flag and a Mayflower flag, followed by a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The Mayflower flag is then "dipped" to commemorate those members who had died since the previous meeting. This is followed by a Christian prayer offered in the name of Jesus Christ.

The group made me feel very welcomed and I feasted on a chicken dinner with an apple pie ala-mode desert. But I could not help but wonder how a guy with Italian and Slovakian ancestry who had no ancestors in the United States prior to the twentieth century ended up speaking to this group!

What is an Evangelical?

Evangelicals and other orthodox Christians wrestle with this question over at Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog. McKnight writes:

To define "evangelical" we need to pay attention to those who have made it their life study to come to terms with this movement, and two scholars have done just that: Mark Noll in the USA and David Bebbington (The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon And Moody (History of Evangelicalism) ) in the UK. They agree on this: an evangelical is a Christian Protestant for whom the central ideas are the leading authority of Scripture, the necessity of personal conversion, the centrality of the death of Christ on the cross as a substitutionary atonement, and the importance of a life of active following Jesus, seen in such things as Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and deeds of compassion and justice. That is the standard definition of evangelical. This definition summarizes those who care about getting this term accurate. It is not a definition designed to exclude some of whom they are worried. It's big tent definition, but it bears no ill-will toward others.

There was a time when I thought a great deal about how to define "evangelical," but so many other scholars have done such a good job of defining the term that I have decided to just rely on them. I agree with McKnight: Bebbington and Noll are the best. For an accessible history of eighteenth-century transatlantic evangelicalism I strongly recommend Noll's The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys.

R.R. Reno on Best Graduate Programs in Theology

I am not a theologian, but I occasionally read theology. Moreover, I always have a few students each year who major in history but pursue graduate work in theology. I thus found R.R. Reno's post on today's First Things blog to be very interesting and informative.

From Reno's perspective, the theology programs at Duke and Notre Dame stand high above the rest. Reno also praises the programs at Princeton and Princeton Theological Seminary, Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto, Catholic University, SMU-Perkins, University of Dayton, and Baylor. His evaluations are based on the program's commitment to Christian orthodoxy and the teaching of theology (and not religious studies). As a result, places such as Virginia, Yale, Harvard, and Chicago do not make his list of top programs. Catholic programs at St. Louis, Boston College, and Fordham fall short in Reno's estimation because they have "drifted from the excitement of the post-Vatican II era to the banality of contextual theology."

I am curious to hear what my more theologically informed readers think about Reno's ratings.

David Brooks Takes the Air Out of Beck and Limbaugh

David Brooks is once again on the mark. In today's column, "The Wizard of Beck," he makes a compelling argument that conservative talk show hosts may have a lot of listeners, but their political power, like the Wizard of Oz, is an illusion.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.

Call for Papers: New Jersey Forum 2010

Let me call your attention to a great little conference on New Jersey history:

Held every other year, the New Jersey Forum provides an opportunity for college and university faculty, teachers, graduate students, independent scholars, museum professionals, historical society members, and all others with an interest in New Jersey studies to present new research to their peers. This interdisciplinary conference defines New Jersey studies broadly, covering not only traditional state history, but also archaeology, geography, fine and decorative arts, material culture, the humanities, literature, ethnic studies, the history of science and technology, labor and industry, public policy, religious history, and popular culture-all with special emphasis on new scholars and scholarship. If you would like to present a research paper at the Forum, email a proposal to the following address:
peter.mickulas@gmail.com

This proposal must include: 1) the title of the paper 2) contact information (address, telephone, e-mail) 3) a one-paragraph bio 4) an abstract of no more than 500 words 5) any audio-visual requirements for presenting your paper You can also suggest a panel with two papers. Please include the information requested above for each proposed panelist.

All information must be provided by e-mail. The deadline for receipt of proposals is December 15, 2009. All proposals will be referred to an advisory committee, which will select the papers to be presented at the Forum.

Notifications of acceptance will be sent in February 2010. Accepted papers may be considered for publication in the Commission-sponsored journal, New Jersey History. The New Jersey Forum is sponsored by the three history-related agencies of the New Jersey Department of State: the Historical Commission, the State Archives, and the State Museum.