Hannah Reynolds Dr.

Esh History of the American Culture March 13th 2013

Making the American Self Making the American Self is 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 pursuit of 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

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

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

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 Self is 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.