Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

One of the most precious liberties Americans have always cherished is the ability to "make something of themselves"--to choose not only an occupation but an identity. Examining works by Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and others, Howe investigates how Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries engaged in the process of "self-construction," "self-improvement," and the "pursuit of happiness." He explores as well how Americans understood individual identity in relation to the larger body politic, and argues that the conscious construction of the autonomous self was in fact essential to American democracy--that it both shaped and was in turn shaped by American democratic institutions. "The thinkers described in this book," Howe writes, "believed that, to the extent individuals exercised self-control, they were making free institutions--liberal, republican, and democratic--possible." And as the scope of American democracy widened so too did the practice of self-construction, moving beyond the preserve of elite white males to potentially all Americans. Howe concludes that the time has come to ground our democracy once again in habits of personal responsibility, civility, and self-discipline esteemed by some of America's most important thinkers.

Erudite, beautifully written, and more pertinent than ever as we enter a new era of individual and governmental responsibility, Making the American Self illuminates an impulse at the very heart of the American experience.

What does it mean to be an American, and how have individual Americans consciously endeavored to create their own identity? "Self-improvement," "self-culture," "self-made man," to "make something of oneself"—all are terms that were used from colonial to Victorian times. The particular language that framed the quest has fallen out of fashion, but it was a powerful cultural imperative for hundreds of years. The quest, in all its "post" guises, continues. Daniel Howe considers the ideas Americans once had about a proper construction of the self. Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Horace Bushnell, Horace Mann, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Dorothea Dix, Frederick Douglass, among others, engaged in discussion about the composition of human nature, the motivation of human behavior, and what can be done about the social problems these create. They shared a common model of human psychology, in which powerful but base passions must be mastered by reason in the service of virtue. How to accomplish this was often itself a subject of passionate controversy.

The story reveals that Americans both distrusted individual autonomy and were enthusiastic about it; passions, reason, and moral sense collided on how to manage it. Howe is empathetic to all the quests—for elites and artisans, blacks and women—seeing in them a basic pursuit of identity. The author demonstrates that aspirations for "self-control" and "self-discipline," grounded in conservatism and evangelical Christianity, also shaped movements that branched leftward to promote social welfare, feminism, and civil rights.

Library Journal

In this intellectual history, Howe (American history, Oxford Univ.) explores how Americans have developed their individualism or, as Jefferson phrased it, their "pursuit of happiness." Howe covers the entire 18th century and the first half of the 19th. In addition to Jefferson, he discusses figures like Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Margaret Fuller. Howe demonstrates that all these individuals agreed that human passions must be controlled by reason and that individualism should retain a sense of virtue and a respect for the community. In the early 19th century, the quest for dignity and self-fulfillment expanded slowly to include blacks and women. An erudite study; recommended for academic and large public libraries.Thomas J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., N.Y.

Daniel Walker Howe is Rhodes Professor of American History, Oxford.