Creating a 'Civilized Nation': Religion, Social Capital, and the Cultural
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Creating a ‘Civilized Nation’: Religion, Social Capital, and the Cultural Foundations of Early American State Formation DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Mark Boonshoft Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Professor John L. Brooke, Advisor Professor Margaret Newell Professor Randolph A. Roth Copyright by Mark Boonshoft 2015 Abstract From the very founding of the United States, education’s actual influence on American society has not measured up to Americans’ belief in education as a vehicle of meritocracy. Shortly after the American Revolution, the lexicographer, editor, and would-be education reformer, Noah Webster noted that in the United States “The constitutions are republican and the laws of education are monarchical.” For Webster, this paradox threatened to destroy the American republic. He and many others believed that education inculcated societal morals that were the foundation of republican government. Americans did not adopt any of Webster’s proposed solutions—namely a public school system—until the nineteenth century. Yet the republic survived anyway. This dissertation argues that Americans’ very desire for geopolitical independence explains their continued deference to European education. Rather than revolutionizing American social order, education became a primary means for reconciling traditional hierarchy with the republican political culture born of revolution. Based on archival research in over twenty libraries in eight states, this dissertation explains the origins of “monarchical education” in colonial America and explores the consequences of its persistence into the early republic. In particular, this dissertation focuses on academies, high-level secondary schools, in the mid-Atlantic and upper South from 1730 to 1810. The religious revivals of the Great Awakening fueled most of the early development of academies. Both British and colonial officials, though, sought to ii use education not only to establish domestic social order, but also to convince the world that British North America belonged in the world of “civilized nations.” The term “civilized nation” described societies that contained the requisite institutions, culture, and manners to follow the law of nations and command diplomatic recognition. Ironically, many of the colonists reared in this Europeanized educational culture became the vanguard of the revolutionary movement. Desperate to cement their independence, Americans in the early republic continued to use education to demonstrate that the United States was a “civilized nation.” This explains why early American educators continued the “absurdity of … copying the manners and adopting the institutions of monarchies,” as Webster noted. American independence rested on a foundation of conformity to European precedents. Large scale systems of public education did not emerge in first decades of independence. Instead, local civil associations and religious groups, with some state-level governmental support, built numerous academies throughout the region. In this way, local communities and state governments took part in the broader process of post-revolutionary state formation. At the same time, the broader goals of state formation impacted local education, often stifling curricular development and educational innovation. Ultimately, these educational practices undermined some of the Revolution’s most democratic impulses. Education shaped the structure of inequality on the grounds in hundreds of American communities, establishing the boundaries of participation in public life along explicit class and gender, and implicit racial, lines. iii Dedication For my Parents iv Acknowledgments Over the last few years, I have driven across much of the mid-Atlantic and upper South chasing down eighteenth-century school records in numerous archives and libraries, big and small. For sharing their expertise, I am grateful to staff members at the Bedford Historical Society, the Bedford Free Library, the New-York Historical Society, the Westchester County Historical Society, the Alexander Library at Rutgers University, the Mudd and Firestone Libraries at Princeton University, the North Jersey History Center at the Morristown Public Library, the Trenton Public Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Presbyterian Historical Society, the University of Pennsylvania Department of Special Collections, the David Library of the American Revolution, the University of Delaware Archives, the Maryland Historical Society, the Maryland State Archives, the Virginia Historical Society, the North Carolina Division of Archives and History, the Rubenstein Library at Duke University, and the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. For making my extended stays in Philly and Newark so productive, I am especially happy to thank Jim Green and Connie King at the Library Company of Philadelphia, and Doug Oxenhorn and James Amemasor at the New-Jersey Historical Society. The generous support of a number of institutions made this research possible. The Ohio State University Department of History funded summer research trips and a semester off from teaching to write. The OSU Graduate School funded my first year of v graduate study and my final year of dissertation writing. I am also grateful to the Virginia Historical Society, the David Library of the American Revolution, the New Jersey Historical Commission, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic for their generous research support. My path to becoming a historian began at the University at Buffalo. As a sophomore, I had the good luck to stumble into Erik Seeman’s early American history survey. Since then, Erik has taught me a great deal about the historian’s craft, and has been a steady source of support and friendship. Also at UB, the late Richard Ellis made me want to study the American Revolution. Carole Emberton made me feel like a colleague when I was a mere undergraduate. Tamara Thornton is simply a mensch. I’ll always be thankful that she nudged me to go to OSU. Ohio State is an ideal place to study early American history. At different stages of this project, Alan Gallay, Joan Cashin, Margaret Sumner, and the late Bill Pencak read my work and offered thoughtful suggestions. Though they work in different fields, Paula Baker, Alice Conklin, Jane Hathaway, Robin Judd, and Dodie McDow all helped me realize what I was actually trying to say. Jim Bach and Rich Ugland made everything run smoothly so I could focus my attention on research and writing. My greatest professional debts are to my dissertation committee. Margaret Newell always pushed me to see the other side of my arguments, and this dissertation is immeasurably better for it. Randolph Roth’s careful critiques always sharpened my thinking. His conviction that I was saying something worth saying kept me motivated. I was incredibly lucky to have John Brooke vi as my advisor. John invested a staggering amount of time and energy into making me a capable historian. His own scholarship remains a model of how to ask big questions while still doing justice to the sources. Fellow graduate students at OSU made the study of history fun. Though they don’t work on early America, Patrick Potyondy, Peggy Solic, Leticia Wiggins, and Adrienne Winans are good friends and always full of good advice. During my time at OSU, I’ve been fortunate to be part of a large and vibrant community of early Americanists, which included Matt Foulds, Jamie Goodall, Scott King-Owen, Tim Leech, Marcus Nevius, Grace Richards, Abby Schreiber, Lisa Zevorich Susner, Dan Troy, Dan Vandersommers, Kevin Vrevich, Jessica Wallace, and Josh Wood. Hunter Price generously read grant proposals, talked theory, and helped me refine my thinking. Special thanks go to Cam Shriver and Emily Arendt, who have listened to me work through most of the ideas and arguments that made it into this dissertation and many more that did not. I owe a different sort of debt to my family. Aiden, Billy, Charlie, and Ellen Dreskin have been nothing but encouraging over these last five years, which has meant a great deal to me. Ivy Barsky has been one of my biggest cheerleaders for as long as I can remember. Happily, dissertation research often gave me an excuse to be in Philly where I could spend more time with her. Thanks go to my brother Michael both for his unwavering support and for distracting me from work when I most needed it. Katie made the last many years more joyous than I could ever have imagined. Finally, I am delighted to dedicate this to my parents, who made it all possible. vii Vita 2010................................................................B.A. History, (SUNY) University at Buffalo 2012................................................................M.A. History, Ohio State University 2010 to present ..............................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History, Ohio State University Publications “The Great Awakening, Presbyterian Education, and the Mobilization of Power in the Revolutionary Mid-Atlantic,” in Michael Zuckerman and Patrick Spero eds., The American Revolution Reborn: New Perspectives for the 21st Century, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming 2016). “The Litchfield Network: Education,