American Intellectual History: Outline of Historiography

HISTORIOGRAPHY. The following is an outline, more or less chronological, of the major approaches to intellectual history in the United States. It will be the basis of the approach in the first seminar, and should be used in conjunction with the detailed bibliography. The early portions are based on J. Higham, "Rise of American Intellectual History," Am. Hist. Rev. 56 (1951), 453-71; R. Skotheim, "The Writing of Am. Histories of Ideas," J. Hist. I 25 (1964), 257; and R. Skotheim, American Intellectual History and Historians (1966).

I. "External" Approaches: 1900-1940

A. Progressive and post-Progressive

*the theory behind the progressive version of American intellectual history is discussed in J. Higham, "American Intellectual History," American Quarterly,13 (1961); and John Higham, History (1965), ch. 3

1. The "New History"

Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence (1922)

Vernon Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (3 vols. 1927-30)

2. The "Sociology of Knowledge"

Although primarily a movement among sociologists, this approach attempted to bring greater rigor to the environmentalism of the progressives. The theory is discussed in Warner Stark, The Sociology of Knowledge (1958). American examples include Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning (1918), William F. Ogburn, Social Change (1922), and Bernard Barber, Science and the Social Order (1952)

3. The Progressive Tradition through 1950

Curti, Merle, The Growth of American Thought (1942)

Commager, H.S. The American Mind (1950)

Wish, Harvey, Society and Thought in Modern America (2nd edition, 1962)

4. Post-Progressive: "Consensus" and the "End of Ideology"

Boorstin, Daniel, The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1947); The Genius of American Politics (1953)

Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America (1955)

Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism (1944); The Age of Reform (1955)

Noble, David W. ,The Paradox of Progressive Thought

White, Morton, Social Thought in America (1947); Science and Sentiment (1972)

II. "Internal" Approaches: 1930-1960

A. "Intellectual History"

*the concept of a "climate of opinion" is discussed in F. Baumer, "Intellectual History and Its Problems," J. Mod. History 21 (1949), 191-203. On Miller see James Hoopes, "Art as History," American Quarterly, 34 (1982); and F.T. Butts, "The Myth of Perry Miller,"American Historical Review, 87(1982).

Conkin, Puritans and Pragmatists (1968)

Gabriel, R., The Course of American Democratic Thought (1940)

Miller, Perry, The New England Mind (2 vols. 1929, 1953);

Errand into the Wilderness (1956); The Life of the

Mind in America (1965)

Note: the close analysis of the structure of ideas continues to characterize most writing of intellectual history through the 1960s, whether or not guided by the models of Gabriel and Baumer. A useful series, now unfortunately out of print, was published by Rand McNally . Titles include:

Alexander, Charles. Nationalism in American Thought, 1930-45 (1971)

Boller. Paul. American Thought in Transition (1969)

Cowing, Cedric, The Great Awakening and the American Revolution (1971)

Lora, Ronald, Conservative Minds in America (1970)

Nash, Roderick, The Nervous Generation, 1917-30 (1970)

Noble, David W., The Progressive Mind (1970)

B. The "History of Ideas"

*the theory is discussed in A. Lovejoy, "Reflections on the History of Ideas," J. Hist. Ideas 1 (Jan. 1940), 3- and T. Bredsdorff, "Lovejoy's Idea of Idea," New Lit. Hist. 8 (W. '77), 195-211

Ekirch, A., The Idea of Progress in America 1815-60 (1944)

Gossett, Thomas, Race (1965)

Weinberg, A. K., Manifest Destiny (1935)

III. Myths and Symbols (the "American Studies "school)

Intellectual history version of "consensus" history. The virtues of this approach are described in R. Welter, "The History of Ideas in America," J. Am. History 51 (1965), 599-614; its shortcomings in B. Kuklick, "Myth and Symbol in American Studies," Am. Q 24 (Oct. 72), 435-50

Marx, Leo, The Machine in the Garden (1964)

Meyers, Marvin , The Jacksonian Persuasion (1957)

Smith, Henry N., Virgin Land (1950)

Taylor, William ,Cavalier and Yankee (1957)

Ward, John W., Jackson: Symbol for and Age (1955)

IV. Radical Critiques

*rooted in the experience of the 1960s, the following rather arbitrary designations identify approaches or concepts that continue to shape the writing of intellectual history. They themselves do not constitute coherent "schools" in the same sense as others listed, however, and typically belong more strictly to social than to intellectual history.

A. "Social Control"

Katz, Michael, The Irony of Early School Reform (1968)

Lasch, Christopher, The New Radicalism in America (1965); Haven in a Heartless World (1977)

Rothman, David, The Discovery of the Asylum (1971)

Tyack, David, The 'One Best System' (1974)

B. Marcusean Analysis. Like social control theory generally, this approach straddles the boundaries between intellectual and social history. The approach finds its basis in Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (1964).

Bleich, "Eros and Bellamy," American Quarterly 16 (1964)

C. Corporatism

Gilbert, James , Designing the Industrial State

Noble, David F. America by Design (1979)

D. Hegemony. Based on the work of Antonio Gramsci, this concept is different from "social control," although the two are sometimes confused. For a useful discussion of this concept with reference to historical writing see R. Jackson Lears, "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony," AHR 90 (1985), 567-93.

Rhys Issac, Transformation of Virginia

R. Jackson, Lears, No Place of Grace (1981)

Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America [contains elements of myth and symbol and cultural hegemony].

IV. New Directions in the 1970s and 1980s<p>

*see L. Krieger, "Intellectual History," JHI, 34 (1973), 499-516; G. Wise, "The Contemporary Crisis in Intellectual History Studies," Clio 5 (1975); J. Higham and P. Conkin, eds., New Directions in American Intellectual History (1979); and D. Hollinger, "American Intellectual History," Reviews in American History, 10 (Dec.1980). The search for new methods reflects (1) the flowering of social-institutional history which was one of the most dramatic movements in American historiography in the late 1960s and early 1970s; and (2) altered cultural conditions, specifically (a) the shrinking of historical branches of discrete disciplines bordering on intellectual history, thus widening its potential subject matter; and (b) a destructive belief in discontinuity that threatened to undermine fundamental assumptions of all intellectual history. Attempting to combine the "internal" and "external," all validate intellectual history by assuming the autonomy of ideas in human affairs, and attempt to locate continuities within discontinuity. The groups are ordered in terms of their emphasis from "external" to "internal."

1. Socio-ideologists. Posit ideas and behavioral circumstances as two autonomous levels, and use variety of techniques to relate the two.

a. "Transactionists." Attempt to relate internal and external approaches by examining the differential impact of clusters of ideas on different groups within concrete institutional settings. Intellectual history consists, not of autonomous ideas, but the intellectual "transactions" among different groups in society. Examples are David Hollinger "Historians and the Discourse of Intellectuals," in New Directions, ed. Conkin and Higam (see "Wingspread Conference"), Darrett Rutman, American Puritanism; and David Hollinger, "The Problem of Pragmatism," Journal of American History 67 (1980), 88-107. See Gene Wise, "Crisis" for discussion.

b. The "organization of knowledge" and "professionalization." See chapters in Higham and Conkin, op. cit.; A. Oleson and Brown, The Pursuit of Knowledge (1976); and J. Voss and A.Oleson, The Organization of Knowledge (1979). A good discussion of the limits of the "professionalization" approach is H. Kuklick, "Boundary Maintenance," J. Hist. Behavioral Sciences (1980)

c. Psychohistory. Relates to institutional setting via use of psychological, and particularly psychoanalytical concepts.Related to "intentionists" (below ) in that intentionist techniques may be used to distinguish "rational" from"irrational" beliefs. See G. Izenberg, "Psychohistory and Intellectual History," History and Theory 14 (1975), 139. Forgie, George B., Patricide in the House Divided (New York, 1979). Dubbert, Joe I. A Man's Place: Masculinity in Transition (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1979).

Richard H. King, A Southern Renaissance: the Cultural Awakening of the American South 1930-1955 ( 1980), ch. 2

2. "Intentionists." Quentin Skinner and his followers insist that the "meaning" of an idea may be assessed only in relation to the "intention" of the individual articulating the idea. See Q. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas," History and Theory, 8 (1969), 3-53; Skinner, "Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action, Political Theory 2 (1974).

3. Structuralism. An extreme attempt to get back to careful internal analysis of texts and "myths" and to reestablish universal patterns. Based on work of Ferdinand Saussure. For most recent discussion see John Blair, "Structuralism and the Humanities," American Quarterly 30: 3 (1978), and David Pace, "Structuralism in History," Ibid., 282-97.

4. Post-structuralism. According to one proponent, "post-structuralism" appeared in the late 1960s as an attempt to replace Saussure's grounded, stable, and closed linguistic system with an ungrounded, open, and protean concept of language." See David Harlan, "Intellectual History and the Return of Literature," AHR 94 (June 1989), 581-609.