Making the American Self- Review

7/29/2019 Making the American Self- Review

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Hannah Reynolds

Dr. Esh

History of the American Culture

March 13th

2013

Making the American Self

Making the American Selfis a trajectory of the intellectual and cultural history

from Revolutionary America to the Civil War. In his book, Daniel Walker Howe studies

Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their discovery as well as drive

for self-construction, self-improvement and pursuitof happiness To be an American

is to pursue happiness through self-improvement. Howe selects Americans of intellectual

level to represent the American self as a whole. He uses men such as Benjamin Franklin,

Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, Henry David

Thoreau, and Horace Mann and women such as Margaret Fuller and Dorothea Dix to be

the voice of America. Howe depicts a central theme that is constant with in the first

hundred and fifty years of American history, it is identified as faculty psychology. This

perception of self-improvement through the regulation of human faculties was a

governing theme in early America. Faculty psychology is a paradigm of passions and

reason entailing prudence. Passions were to be controlled by reason because reason was

considered higher but because passions were stronger it lead to problems. The rise of

individualism in the antebellum period, which I trace, was in fact accompanied by a

growing nationalism(Howe pg. 5). This is a representation of autonomous selfhood that

was widely common amongst the Americans during the early national and antebellum


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eras. Howe argues that this conscious construction of autonomous self was indispensable

to American democracy (Howe pg. 263).

Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards are the two intellectual men in whom

Howe starts off his argument. During the course of the book Howe successfully shows

just how faculty psychology plays a part between Calvinists and Pragmatists. Edwards

and Franklin illustrate respectively the traditional distrust of individual autonomy and the

new enthusiasm for it (Howe pg. 2). Jonathan Edwards out look on reason was that one

perceived it rather than be motivated by it. As a result of the fall and original sin,

Edwards believed humans were inherently selfish. The ruin which the Fall brought up

the soul of man consists very much in that he lost nobler and more extensive principles,

and fell wholly under the government of self-love (Howe pg. 41). Edwards search for

conquering the passions led him to believe that only by God's supremacy can the fallen

human nature be compressed. Franklin denied the idea of original sin, but he also saw the

need to regulate the passions. He relied on prudence to aid reason, akin to our concern

with material well being, rather than as a passion(Howe pg. 27). Morality is therefore

rational and honesty is the best policy

Howe next sections focus on the Founding Fathers, and nineteenth century market

revolution, The Founding Fathers had much influence on the autonomy of America yet

most were not original in their thinking rather adapted much of their ideology from

Scottish philosophers. The Scottish Enlightenment is a primary subject in which Howe

emphasizes. Many of the Founding Fathers agreed on the fact that passions were to be

controlled but how to control them was debated over. Improvement was a subject on

which the Scottish philosophers has had much to say, and for Jefferson, America was a


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nation dedicated to the opportunity for self-improvement, both individual and collective

(Howe pg. 77). Extension of the market after 1815 revolutionized the ways in which

people lived(Johnson pg. 10). The market revolution led to democratization of faculty

psychology. This changed the way in which American society functions, a voluntary

society emerged The pursuit of self-defined identity in antebellum America almost

always has two sides: voluntary choice and self-discipline (Howe pg. 112). Faculty

Psychology is seen as a social reform. Horace Manns public schooling system allowed

the widespread demand for opportunities for self-improvement. Dorothea Dix work in the

asylums allowed those with mental disabilities to learn to control their passions and

become an individual that is self-improved.

Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were prime examples of self-made

men.They both utilized faculty psychology in their speeches to help form America into a

place where others had the opportunity to make something of themselves. the self-made

man represented a heroic ideal, with significance to millions as an expression of the

meaning of life, an ideal in which making money was incidental to self-fulfillment

(Howe pg. 136). Douglas believed that honesty and self-discipline were more important

to building the character of ones self rather then making worldly success.

Each section of Howe book is remarkable to say the least. However because

Howe is an intellectual historian he does leave off the majority of New England. With the

spread of public school it did allow literacy to widen the minds and opportunities of

many people. Yet what about the middle man, the men in which the middle class of

America was founded by. Intellectual history is important but can have drawbacks when

dealing with the masses. The middle class of America had profound influence on the


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autonomy of America and were the ideal makers of the American-self. Therefore Howe

should have touched more on the middle class and how they made arouse to make

America.

Making the American Selfis the intellectual history as well as cultural history of

just how the American self was born. Through the construction of ones self, how one

improves in all areas of life and how to strive for the pursuit of happiness, Howe lays

out how through faculty psychology one attains such title as American-self.

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Making the American Self- Review