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    Colonial America - European Influences: Introduction To American Civilization III. Articulating The American Dream

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    This document provides context on the development of the American Dream ideal through summaries of influential colonial figures and works. It discusses how Enlightenment ideas spread through works like Cato Letters and influenced American independence. It profiles Benjamin Franklin's career and writings, including his Autobiography, which articulated a vision of social and economic mobility through hard work and civic participation. The document also summarizes Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer, an influential work describing America as a land of freedom and opportunity for immigrants.

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    Colonial America - European Influences: Introduction To American Civilization III. Articulating The American Dream

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    MissC0RA
    43 views6 pages
    This document provides context on the development of the American Dream ideal through summaries of influential colonial figures and works. It discusses how Enlightenment ideas spread through works like Cato Letters and influenced American independence. It profiles Benjamin Franklin's career and writings, including his Autobiography, which articulated a vision of social and economic mobility through hard work and civic participation. The document also summarizes Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer, an influential work describing America as a land of freedom and opportunity for immigrants.

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    This document provides context on the development of the American Dream ideal through summaries of influential colonial figures and works. It discusses how Enlightenment ideas spread through works like Cato Letters and influenced American independence. It profiles Benjamin Franklin's career and writings, including his Autobiography, which articulated a vision of social and economic mobility through hard work and civic participation. The document also summarizes Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer, an influential work describing America as a land of freedom and opportunity for immigrants.

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    Colonial America - European Influences: Introduction To American Civilization III. Articulating The American Dream

    Uploaded by

    MissC0RA
    This document provides context on the development of the American Dream ideal through summaries of influential colonial figures and works. It discusses how Enlightenment ideas spread through works like Cato Letters and influenced American independence. It profiles Benjamin Franklin's career and writings, including his Autobiography, which articulated a vision of social and economic mobility through hard work and civic participation. The document also summarizes Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer, an influential work describing America as a land of freedom and opportunity for immigrants.

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    INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN CIVILIZATION

    III. Articulating the American Dream


    Colonial America European Influences
    Cato Letters in Independent Whig (1720-23) by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon on religious
    and personal freedoms of citizens and government responsibilities, press freedom to expose
    wrongs
    Colonists were familiar with works of Milton, Hobbes, Locke (theoretical philosophers of
    Enlightenment ideas), Cato Letters and Joseph Addisons 1712 play Cato backbone of
    Declaration of Independence (1776) and Constitution (1789)

    Media and Culture in Colonial America


    1704, The Boston News Letter 1st continuous newspaper among religious exiles in Boston (by
    1700, 2nd publishing center of British Empire)
    Publications as civil and ecclesiastical tools in colonies (essays, treatises, sermons) (fostering
    press), literature p. in London, under control of local government (publishers name + place of
    publication)
    Boston Gazette (1721); New England Courant (1721) est. by James Franklin. Under Ben
    Franklin away from government folly to entertainment / sensationalism (adultery, gossip, crime) +
    ads, then in Pennsylvania Gazette
    New York Gazette (1725) 1st New York paper
    General features:
    Democracy = conform to philosophy of particular colony, no dissenters allowed. Freedom of press
    thwarted by authorities control and need of gvmt approval
    Women took part in publishing on husbands imprisonment or death
    Newspaper potential as vehicle of popular revolt: Zenger Trial (1734) defense lawyer
    Hamilton on jurys right to decide both law and fact (in force after 1780s)

    Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)


    Puritan background; 15th child of a chandler from Boston;
    At 12 he becomes an apprentice and indentured servant to his older brother James Franklin, a
    successful printer, creator of the first independent newspaper in the colonies The New-England
    Courant;
    At 17 B.F. runs away to Philadelphia where he establishes his own printing business, then goes
    and works in London; in 1729 he becomes rich by printing Pennsylvania currency;
    His fame grows with the publication of essays, hoaxes, satires, bagatelles, and especially Poor
    Richards Almanac (1733-1758); The Way to Wealth (1758) - compilation of prudential maxims;
    A Founding Father of the United States, first U.S. Postmaster General, diplomat, and member of
    the 1787 Constitutional Convention;

    Public works: founder of first public library in America (1731); initiator of one of the first volunteer
    firefighting companies (1736); The Academy and College of Philadelphia (1751); co-founder of
    Pennsylvania Hospital (1751); organizer of the Pennsylvania Militia (1756); abolitionist society;
    Inventions & scientific interests: lightning rod, bifocal glasses, Franklin stove, glass armonica (also
    a composer!); experimented with electricity, metallurgy; interested in light theory, meteorology.

    Silence Dogood: Ben Franklins First Writing Persona

    14 Letters to editor of The New-England Courant, 1st American newspaper to encourage


    literary effort and creation not reproduction of news from Europe, promoting satire, an
    emergent English genre censuring wickedness, celebrating authorial wit, fol. model of
    London-based Spectator caricaturing country gentry (1711-1712)
    Other Couranteers affronted Bostons powers local postmaster, singing in church
    Silence Dogood was a female persona, a middle-aged country parsons widow speaking
    her mind and exposing the wrongs of Boston society
    Published on upper left corner of front page
    The widow on her own birth: My Entrance into this troublesome World was attended with
    the Death of my Father, a Misfortune, which tho I was not then capable of knowing, I shall
    never be able to forget.
    Silence D. was born as her parents were on the ship from London to Boston, the father
    being washed overboard as he was rejoicing over the girls birth.
    Surname Dogood announcing authors main goal (communitys greater good): It is
    undoubtedly the Duty of all Persons to serve the Country they live in, fol. a natural
    Inclination to observe and reprove the Faults of others and be a mortal Enemy to arbitrary
    Government and unlimited Power announcing BFs later themes
    Ironical fulfillment of surname by disobeying first name, Silence, associated to the less free
    members of society, used to interrogate the Puritan society hierarchy (e.g. slaves, widows).
    [see Joyce E. Chaplin in Marcus and Sollors 76-78] BF as Deist

    Silence Dogoods Letters


    Reprimanded the main sources of constituted Ma authority:
    Letter 4 satirized Harvard College producing young men who were as great Blockheads as
    ever, only more proud and self-conceited, recommending instead self-help and selfeducation, an idea elaborated in Autob.
    Letter 5 questioned mens presumed superiority over women, fol. their foolish courting
    flattery
    Letter 8 exposed the authorities recent censure of Courant as breach of liberty of speech
    Letters 9, 14 denounced politicians and clerics attempts to mix religion and politics.
    Preaching temperance by producing a comic Drinkers Dictionary drunkard as boozey,
    cogey, tipsey, foxd, merry, mellow, fuddled
    Serious calling for civic spirit and self-improvement

    Franklins Autobiography
    2

    The Autobiography (1771-1790): unfinished, published and entitled posthumously, made up of four
    parts;
    Why did Franklin write his autobiography?
    In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality
    industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances of the contrary. I dressed plainly; I was seen at
    no places of idle diversion; I never went out a-fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes
    debauched me from my work; but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal: and to show that I
    was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores,
    through the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteemed an industrious thriving young man,
    and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom,
    others proposed supplying me with books, and I went on swimmingly (Autobiography. Part One).

    Part 1 + outline of entire work w. in England, betw. July and August 1771, addressed to his son,
    William
    Part 2 w. in 1784 in France
    Part 3 w. 1788-1789, back in the States
    Part 4 shortly before Franklins death, in poor health
    examined the earlier and formative periods of his life: childhood and youth, apprenticeship and
    flight to Philadelphia, accomplishments as a printer and then as a scientist, civic involvements as
    Pennsylvanian resident
    story of Franklins remarkable career and strategy for self-made success in the context of
    emerging American nationhood (prefiguring Emersons self-reliant American)
    Celebrating wealth and virtue via active civic participation
    Insight into art and business of printing
    Celebration of rational viewpoints, self-education based on ones personal experience, honest
    work and talk, modest diffidence in non-categorical language (perhaps, I believe, It appears to me
    etc., 71) vs. categorical language; access to knowledge via est. of libraries

    Edwards/Franklin Contrast
    Both Edwards and Franklin display an amazing capacity for work;
    J.E. focus on interiority/ B.F. interested in how he fits into the world (social outreach);
    J.E.s Personal Narrative for his eyes only/ B.F.s Autobiography written for his son (Part One)
    and because important people asked him to, as model; B.F. revised the text to suit potential
    audiences (English, French, American);
    J.E. like existentialists, concerned with examining the darkness of the self / B.F. like
    postmodernists, has no form, no consciousness, plays roles;
    J.E. a true Calvinist, tormented by the knowledge of his sinful condition / B.F. at ease with
    himself (positive view of man, Enlightenment personality);
    3

    Both carry out self-examination, but for different purposes; Franklins purpose is to achieve worldly
    success and sustain progress; rationalization of conduct;
    Apparently, J.E. stands for an old world vision, while B.F. is modern, secular, community-focused;
    B.F. guilty of both antinomianism and arminianism.

    Franklins Ethics and the American Dream


    The thirteen virtues; new meaning of rationalization of conduct; Franklins utilitarianism;
    Franklins strategy: first make your fortune, gain status, and then do good works for society;
    Franklin turns the national covenant (focused on obedience to God) into a secular one (focused on
    freedom, property, and equality);
    Originator of the rags to riches story in American literature (not origins but actions count);
    credited with having articulated the American Dream;
    Max Weber sees Franklin as an exemplary type of the spirit of capitalism in his 1905 study The
    Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

    Michel Guillaume Jean de Crvecoeurs Contribution to the


    American Dream & American Identity
    French aristocrat and intellectual b. in 1735, living in England in his teens, immigrated to Canada
    and settled in a rural area at Pine Hill farm, Orange County, New York province in 1765, till 1778,
    1778-1779 imprisoned as possible spy by British rulers; back to NY in 1783, as consul of France
    Changing names chameleonic being, multiple belonging to France, England, America: James
    Hector St. John (1764); Cahioharra for Oneida Indians (1766)
    Author of Letters from an American Farmer (1782), which includes his famous essay What is an
    American? (Letter III), but also a less congratulatory picture of America in Letter IX (Reflections
    on Negro Slavery);
    One of the first to write about Americans as a nation; contributor to the image of America as the
    land of freedom, equal opportunity, and self-determination; America as the great asylum for the
    poor of Europe.

    Crvecoeurs Letters to an American Farmer


    Addressed to an Englishman, F.B., and due to a Pensylvanian rustic named James, married to a
    Quaker wife, in colloquial style
    Mapping American geographic expansion via accounts of Pensylvania farm life (celebration of
    agrarianism) + accounts of life in Nantucket, Ma (fishing, whales, inhabitants as practical and
    adventurous Melvilles Moby Dick) and then Charleston, South Carolina a place where
    mankind reap too much, do not toil enough and found their luxury on abusive slavery
    4

    Crvecoeurs Keywords
    cultivation (metaphor for culture, civilization);
    political metamorphosis of people from subjects to citizens, fol. comparison betw. Old and New
    World, different class structure:
    He is arrived on a new continent; a modern society offers itself to its contemplation, different from
    what he had hitherto seen. It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess
    everything and of a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratic families, no courts,
    no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible
    one, no great manufactures employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the
    poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we
    are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. () We are all animated with the spirit
    of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself.
    Can a wretch who wanders about, who works and starves, whose life is a continuous scene of
    sore affliction or pinching penury can that man call England or any other kingdom his country?
    Formerly they were not numbered in any civil lists of their country, except in those of the poor;
    here they rank as citizens. By what invisible power has this metamorphosis been performed? By
    that of laws and that of their industry. (Letter 3, 118-9)
    Americans as natural transplantation for the better via relentless labor: In Europe they were as
    so many useless plants, wanting vegetative mould and refreshing showers. They withered, and
    were moved down by want, hunger and war; but now, by the power of transplantation, like all other
    plants, they have taken root and flourished! (Letter 3)
    American as emergent new human type a new mode of living, a new social system, hence
    The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles. Here individuals of all nations are
    melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in
    the world (Letter 3). New American location: intermediate space between commercial seaboard
    and wild frontier
    Religious indifference (reasons: hard work of all family members, intermarriages)
    Independence and loneliness as defining character traits
    Industry, moderation, open class system thanks to no crowdedness and geographical openness

    Crvecoeurs Contribution
    Two major theories of American culture can be traced to Crvecoeur:

    the melting pot theory (see Israel Zangwills play The Melting Pot, 1908);
    the frontier thesis

    Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot (1908)


    America is Gods crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your
    fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But
    5

    you wont be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you are coming to these are
    the fires of God. () Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians
    into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American. (Zangwill 33, my emphases)
    Mendel [wounded]: Nonsense! How can Miss Revendal understand you better than your own
    uncle?
    David [mystically exalted]: I cant explain I feel it.
    Mendel: Of course shes interested in your music, thank Heaven. But what other understanding
    can there be between a Russian Jew and a Russian Christian?
    David: What understanding? Arent we both Americans? (Zangwill 41-42)
    Mendel: I should have thought the American was made already eighty millions of him.
    David: No, uncle, the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the crucible, I tell you he
    will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman. Ah, what a glorious Finale for my
    symphony if I can only write it. (Zangwill 34)

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