"^' v wj.j. $4^50 to history. Thfcultural approach 907.1 W27c 59-10603 Ware $4.50 The cultural approach to history. KANSAS CITY. MO. PUBLIC LIBRARY D DDD1 SOUTHWEST THE CULTURAL APPROACH TO HISTORY THE CULTURAL APPROACH TO HISTORY Edited for the American Historical Association By CAROLINE F. WARE Mew Tork: Morningside Heights COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1940 COPYRIGHT 1940 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK FOREIGN AGENTS: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, Amen House, London, E. C. 4, England, and B. I. Building, Nicol Road, Bombay, India; Maruzen Company, Ltd., 6 Nihonbashi, Tori-Nichome, Tokyo, Japan MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PREFACE .FIRST credit for this volume belongs to Eugene N. Anderson, who, as chairman of the Program Committee for the American His- torical Association meetings in December, 1939, was mainly respon- sible for planning the sessions at which the papers constituting this volume were presented. In addition to Mr. Anderson, the following members of the Program Committee and others outside of the Com- mittee were responsible for arranging the particular sessions at which the papers here included were given: Merle Curti, Psychol- ogy and History; Carlton C. Qualey, Nationality Groups in the United States; Philip E. Mosely, The Peasant Family; Ralph E. Turner, The Industrial City; Paul Lewinson, The Corporation an Institutional Factor in Modern History; Wayne Grover, Land Power and Sea Power; Walter F. Dorn, Liberalism; Edgar N. Johnson, Medieval Culture, Ecclesiastical or Secular?; Viola F. Barnes and Ralph H. Gabriel, How Explain the "Flowering of New England"?; Louis C. Hunter, Local History, and Population Studies and History; Ben A. Botkin, Some Neglected Sources of Social History; Cyrus H. Peake, The Modernization of China and Japan. In the editing of the volume, Ralph E. Turner furnished editorial advice and assistance and Miriam Camp assumed respon- sibility for checking. C. F. W. Washington, D,C, September, CONTENTS Introduction, by CAROLINE F. WARE 3 PART ONE: TECHNIQUES OF CULTURAL ANALYSIS Introductory Note i g Society as Viewed by the Anthropologist, by GEOFFREY GORER 20 Clio and Psyche: Some Interrelations of Psychology and His- tory, by GOODWIN WATSON 34 Psychology and the Interpretation of Historical Events, by FRANZ ALEXANDER 48 PART Two: CULTURAL GROUPS Introductory Note 6 1 Cultural Groups in the United States, by CAROLINE F. WARE 62 Approaches to the Study of Nationality Groups in the United States 74 The Cultural "Syncretism" of Nationality Groups, by MAURICE R. DAVIE 74 Cultural Contribution versus Cultural Assimilation, by RAY ALLEN BILLINGTON 78 The Transitional Character of Nationality Group Culture, by GAKLTON C. QUALEY 82 European Backgrounds and American Rivalries, by OSCAR OSBURN WINTHER 84 Summary of the Discussion, by JOSEPH s. ROUCEK, CAROLINE F. WARE, and M, w. ROYSE 86 PART THREE: CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS Introductory Note 93 viii CONTENTS The Peasant Family: The Zadruga, or Communal Joint-Fam- PHILIP E. ily in the Balkans, and Its Recent Evolution, by MOSELY 95 The Peasant Family: The Chinese Large-Family, Its Role and Recent Trends, by KNIGHT BIGGERSTAFF 1 09 The Peasant Household under the Mir and the Kolkhoz in Modern Russian History, by LAZAR VOLIN 125 The Emergence of the First Indus trial City: Manchester, 1780- 1850, by LEON S. MARSHALL 140 The Corporation: An Institutional Factor in Modern History, by STEPHEN RAUSHENBUSH 1 6% The Social History of the Corporation in the United States, by THOMAS C. COCHRAN l68 The German Army of the Second Reich as a Cultural Institu- tion, by ALFRED VAGTS 1 82 PART FOUR: THE CULTURAL ROLE OF IDEAS Introductory Note 199 Medieval Intellectual History: Ecclesiastical or Secular? by GRAY C. BOYCE 202 The Historical Position of Liberalism, by GEORGE 11. SABINE 212 PART FIVE: THE DYNAMICS OF CULTURAL CHANGE Introductory Note 225 The Industrial City: Center of Cultural Change, by RALPH K. TURNER g % 8 The Modernization of China and Japan: A Comparative Study in Cultural Conflict, by HU SHIH The Flowering of New England, edited by RALPH H. GABRIEL Economic Ferment, by EDWARD a KIRKIJVND 252 Basic Cultural Unity, by ARTHUR E. BESTOR 254 CONTENTS ix The Social and Economic Characteristics of the Leaders, by MERLE CURTI 259 Boston's Puritan Heritage and Its "Flowering" in Literature and Theology, by RICHARD H. SHRYOCK 264 1 * Connecticut's "Flowering in Science and Reform, by c. R. KELLER 267 PART Six: SOURCES AND MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF CULTURAL HISTORY Introductory Note 273 The Value of Local History, by CONSTANCE MCLAUGHLIN GREEN 275 The Use of Population Data 287 The Historical Context of Population Study, by FRANK LO- RIMER 287 Medieval Demography, by JOSIAH c. RUSSELL 291 The New South, 1880-1936: A Study in Population Move- ments, by RUPERT B. VANCE 294 Local Historical Studies and Population Problems, by JAMES c, MALIN 300 Folklore as a Neglected Source of Social History, by B. A. BOT- KIN 308 Folk Music as a Source of Social History, by CHARLES SEEGER 316 Documentary Photographs, by ROY E, STRYKER and PAUL H. JOHNSTONE 324 With nine photographs Dialect Areas, Settlement Areas, and Culture Areas in the United States, by HANS K.URATH 331 With eight charts Latin Literature as a Source for the Study of Medieval Culture, by CORNELIA C. COULTER 346 Index 353 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION CAROLINE F. WARE "/ know histhry isn't thrue, Hinnessy, because it ain't like what I see wry day in Halsted Sthreet. If any wan comes along with a histhry iv Greece or Rome that'll shoiu me th' people fightin', gettin' dhrunk, makin' love, gettin' married, owin* th' grocery man an' bein' without hard-coal, I'll believe they was a Greece or Rome, but not befure . histhry is a post-mortem examination. It tells ye what a coun- thry died iv. But I'd like to know what it lived iv" OBSERVATIONS BY MR. DOOLEY (New York, 1906), p. 271. XT IS a truism that each age writes and rewrites history in terms of the values, attitudes, and curiosities of that age, and that it brings to the task the intellectual tools which are part of its herit- age and the product of its creation. The analytical concepts, the logical procedures, the instruments of measurement, classification, observation, and the basic assumptions in terms of which these are applied all these are modified and conditioned by changes, both in conditions of life and in frontiers of knowledge and understand- ing. The present volume reflects the changes which are affecting the writing of history today. Historical writing in modern times has passed through a succes- sion of stages. The generation of von Ranke and his followers re- acted against the manner in which historians of preceding genera- tions had approached the past. They rejected the effort to apply philosophical generalizations to broad periods, which had charac- terized Gibbon's approach to the decline and fall of Rome, or, later, Macaulay's interpretation of both ancient and modern times, and insisted instead upon a rigorous pursuit of "stubborn facts/' The same milieu which produced the laboratory sciences and faith in the scientific method produced the "objective" historian whose declared aim was to "let the facts speak for themselves/' It soon became apparent, however, that this prescription was an insufficient guide, for it left unanswered the vital question, "Which l facts?" This question has been a major concern of many historians of the twentieth Century, particularly those who distinguish them- * The Lon- CL f for instance, Herbert ButterMd, Whig Interpretation of History, don, 4 INTRODUCTION selves as "economic" or "social" historians. It first took the form, conspicuously represented by Charles A. Beard's Economic Inter- pretation of the Constitution, of insistence that the political "facts" habitually included within the historian's purview told only part of the story and were themselves not to be fully understood in the absence of certain economic "facts." The addition of economic data was only a beginning. "Social" histories, and histories of "everyday life," followed close on the heels of "economic" histories. All sorts of data relating to manners and customs, to artists, in- ventions, and even women's fashions began to compete with dates of battles and figures on shipping tonnage for a place in historical books. The first answer to the question "Which facts?" was an ex- tensive answer. It led the historian into highways and byways, where he dug out material on private and public lives, on issues and places great and small; but it provided no basis for attaching particular significance to one or another body of data. The wider the range of facts covered, however, the more press- ing the problem of selection and integration. Which facts should be used? How should those facts be interrelated and interpreted? What conceptual tools could the historian bring to the search for and arrangement of his data? However much he might aim to let the facts speak for themselves, they remained eloquently silent un- til some terms in which to express them were employed. Earlier historians, such as Gibbon and Macaulay, had faced no difficulty here. They had brought to their task the assumptions and prejudices of the educated, politically minded Englishmen of their respective times. Their categories of "good things" and "bad things" were frankly part of their social outlook; the terms of controversy were set by the climate of opinion of their worlds. The "scientific" historians acknowledged no such basis of selec- tion and interpretation, but the terms in which they shaped their questions and presented their data were still largely determined by their own social outlook. They were members of the academic fraternity, which implied a certain position in society, certain so- cial experience, social values, and contacts with certain social groups.