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Books

Jeffersonians in Power

Jeffersonians in Power

University of Virginia Press
9/18/2019
In the 1790s, the Jeffersonian Republicans were the party of “no.” They opposed attempts to expand the government’s role in society, criticized the Washington administration’s national bank, railed against a standing army, and bemoaned the spirit of the Federalist regime, which, they claimed, favored elite over ordinary Americans.

What’s the Point of College?

What’s the Point of College?

John Hopkins University Press
8/13/2019
In our current age of reform, there are countless ideas about how to “fix” higher education. But before we can reconceptualize the college experience, we need to remember why we have these institutions in the first place—and what we want from them.

In What’s the Point of College?, historian Johann N. Neem offers a new way to think about the major questions facing higher education today, from online education to disruptive innovation to how students really learn. As commentators, reformers, and policymakers call for dramatic change and new educational models, this collection of lucid essays asks us to pause and take stock. What is a college education supposed to be? What kinds of institutions and practices will best help us get there? And which virtues must colleges and universities cultivate to sustain their desired ends?

Democracy’s Schools

Democracy’s Schools

John Hopkins University Press
8/1/2017
At a time when Americans are debating the future of public education, Johann N. Neem tells the inspiring story of how and why Americans built a robust public school system in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. It’s a story in which ordinary people in towns across the country worked together to form districts and build schoolhouses and reformers sought to expand tax support and give every child a liberal education. By the time of the Civil War, most northern states had made common schools free, and many southern states were heading in the same direction. Americans made schooling a public good.

Creating a Nation of Joiners

Creating a Nation of Joiners

Harvard University Press
12/15/2008
The United States is a nation of joiners. Ever since Alexis de Tocqueville published his observations in Democracy in America, Americans have recognized the distinctiveness of their voluntary tradition. In a work of political, legal, social, and intellectual history, focusing on the grassroots actions of ordinary people, Neem traces the origins of this venerable tradition to the vexed beginnings of American democracy in Massachusetts.

Historiography

A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation

A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation

The Hedgehog Review
6/24/2022
It was the evening before the Fourth of July in the last year of his tumultuous presidency, and I sat in front of my television transfixed and horrified as Donald Trump delivered a speech at Mount Rushmore, ostensibly a celebration of American independence but in fact a call for resistance. Against the dramatic backdrop of the four granite presidential faces and American flags, Trump promised that “the American people…will not allow our country, and all of its values, history, and culture, to be taken from them” by protestors and left-leaning scholars. He condemned so-called cancel culture for demanding absolute devotion to leftist dogma. Two months later, he would reprise that theme at the White House Conference on American History. “Whether it is the mob on the street, or the cancel culture in the boardroom,” Trump proclaimed, “the goal is the same…to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage, and their very way of life.”

From Polity To Exchange: The Fate Of Democracy In The Changing Fields Of Early American Histiography

From Polity To Exchange: The Fate Of Democracy In The Changing Fields Of Early American Histiography

Cambridge University Press
11/20/2018
Gordon Wood stoked a strong response from his fellow early American historians in 2015 when, in the pages of the Weekly Standard, he accused the Omohundro Institute of Early American History, publishers of the prestigious William and Mary Quarterly, of abandoning interest in the development of the United States. “A new generation of historians is no longer interested in how the United States came to be,” Wood argued. “That kind of narrative history of the nation, they say, is not only inherently triumphalist but has a teleological bias built into it.” Wood blamed the shift away from the nation on historians’ interest in such issues as race and gender: “The inequalities of race and gender now permeate much of academic history-writing, so much so that the general reading public that wants to learn about the whole of our nation’s past has had to turn to the history books written by nonacademics who have no PhDs and are not involved in the incestuous conversations of the academic scholars.” Of the William and Mary Quarterly, Wood concluded, “without some kind of historical GPS, it is in danger of losing its way.”

American History In A Global Age

American History In A Global Age

History and Theory
2/11/2011
Historians around the world have sought to move beyond national history. In doing so, they often conflate ethical and methodological arguments against national history. This essay, first, draws a clear line between the ethical and the methodological arguments concerning national history. It then offers a rationale for the continued writing of national history in general, and American history in particular, in today’s global age. The essay makes two main points. First, it argues that nationalism, and thus the national histories that sustain national identities, are vital to liberal democratic societies because they ensure the social bonds necessary to enable democratic citizens to sacrifice their immediate interests for the common good. The essay then argues that new methodological and historical work on the history of nations and nationalism has proven that nations are as real as any other historical group. Rejecting national history on critics’ terms would require rejecting the history of all groups. Instead, new methods of studying nations and nationalism have reinforced rather than undermined the legitimacy of national history within the discipline.

Democracy in the Early Republic

Social Capital, Civic Labor, and State Capacity in the Early American Republic: Schools, Courts, and Law Enforcement

Social Capital, Civic Labor, and State Capacity in the Early American Republic: Schools, Courts, and Law Enforcement

Cambridge University Press
6/13/2019
This article examines the local roots of the American state to complicate existing historiography. It suggests that, for education and law, the state tapped into local social capital to develop capacity. State and local governments relied on the mobilization of citizens’ bodies—civic labor—to provide public goods. In doing so, it suggests that we need to offer a story that captures the myriad ways that Americans engaged in state-building, and how those different forms shaped Americans’ relations with state power.

Two Approaches to Democratization: Engagement versus Capability,” in Practicing Democracy: Popular Politics in the United States from the Constitution to the Civil War

Two Approaches to Democratization: Engagement versus Capability,” in Practicing Democracy: Popular Politics in the United States from the Constitution to the Civil War

University Of Virginia Press
6/1/2015
In Practicing Democracy, eleven historians challenge conventional narratives of democratization in the early United States, offering new perspectives on the period between the ratification of the Constitution and the outbreak of the Civil War. The essays in this collection address critical themes such as the origins, evolution, and disintegration of party competition, the relationship between political parties and popular participation, and the place that parties occupied within the wider world of United States politics.

Civil Society and American Nationalism, 1776-1865,” in Politics and Partnerships: The Role of Voluntary Associations in America’s Political Past and Present

Civil Society and American Nationalism, 1776-1865,” in Politics and Partnerships: The Role of Voluntary Associations in America’s Political Past and Present

The University Of Chicago Press
2/15/2011
Exhorting people to volunteer is part of the everyday vocabulary of American politics. Routinely, members of both major parties call for partnerships between government and nonprofit organizations. These entreaties increase dramatically during times of crisis, and the voluntary efforts of ordinary citizens are now seen as a necessary supplement to government intervention.

Review: Taking Modernity’s Wager: Tocqueville, Social Capital, and the American Civil War

Creating Social Capital in the Early American Republic: The View from Connecticut

MIT Press Direct
4/1/2009
During the early years of the American republic, Connecticut’s elite helped to develop a new form of social order, based on voluntary association, replacing the authoritarian, theological hierarchy of the old regime. Social relations, which were once thought fixed in nature by divine sanction, became amenable to the initiatives of the populace. By the antebellum era, Americans had also discovered that social capital could be created through the ordinary activities of people engaged in civil society.

Politics and the Origins of the Nonprofit Corporation in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, 1780-1820

Politics and the Origins of the Nonprofit Corporation in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, 1780-1820

Sage Journals
9/1/2003
This article explores the origins of the nonprofit corporation following American independence. Corporations had long been considered state agencies responsible to and under the control of state leaders. Both Federalists and Republicans believed that corporate trustees were political officeholders. Only in the face of intense partisan and religious conflict did they change their minds. By examining debates over the legal status of colleges and churches, this article explains how party politics and religious pluralism convinced leaders in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to distinguish between nonprofit corporations and the state. These debates culminated in the United States Supreme Court case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. The court ruled that private corporations were protected from state control. The decision provided the legal foundation for the subsequent development of the nonprofit corporation and civil society in the United States.

Thomas Jefferson

“From ‘Ancients and Axioms’ to ‘Every Branch of Science’: Thomas Jefferson’s Philosophy of Liberal Education,” in The Founding of Mr. Jefferson’s University

“From ‘Ancients and Axioms’ to ‘Every Branch of Science’: Thomas Jefferson’s Philosophy of Liberal Education,” in The Founding of Mr. Jefferson’s University

Stanford University Libraries
1/1/2019
Established in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the University of Virginia was known as “The University” throughout the South for most of the nineteenth century, and today it stands as one of the premier universities in the world. This volume provides an in-depth look at the founding of the University and, in the process, develops new and important insights into Jefferson’s contributions as well as into the impact of the University on the history of higher education.The Contributors depict the students who were entering higher education in the early republic–their aspirations, their juvenile and often violent confrontations with authority, and their relationships with enslaved workers at the University. Contributors then turn to the building of the University, including its unique architectural plan as an “Academical Village” and the often-hidden role of African Americans in its construction and day-to-day life. The next Set of essays explore various aspects of Jefferson’s intellectual vision for the University, including his innovative scheme for medical education, his dogmatic view of the necessity of a “republican” legal education, and the detailed plans for the library by Jefferson, one of America’s preeminent bibliophiles. The book concludes by considering the changing nature of education in the early nineteenth century, in particular the new focus on research and discovery, in which Jefferson, again, played an important role. Providing a fascinating and important look at the development of one of America’s oldest and most preeminent educational institutions, this book provides yet another perspective from which to appreciate the extraordinary contributions of Jefferson in the development of the new nation.

Developing Freedom: Thomas Jefferson, the State, and Human Capability

Developing Freedom: Thomas Jefferson, the State, and Human Capability

Cambridge University Press
4/2/2013
Thomas Jefferson is often invoked as an advocate of limited government and a defender of individual rights. This article argues that rights were Jefferson’s starting place. Jefferson also believed that American citizens should have opportunities to develop the capabilities necessary to enjoy the full use of their rights. Rather than thinking about Jefferson as progovernment or antigovernment, this article concludes that we must understand the particular kind of government Jefferson desired, the ends he had in mind, and why and how those ends differed from his Federalist predecessors. A better understanding of Jefferson’s statecraft not only offers a new perspective on the relationship between government and rights in Jefferson’s thought but also how and why Jeffersonians in power used the state to promote individual freedom.

History of Education

What Is a Professor?

What Is a Professor?

Project Muse
12/1/2021
I think I have a good doctor. But is there a way to be certain? Successful healthcare, like education, depends on both the quality of providers and the responses and actions of recipients. Without a strong background in medicine, I rely on my own perceptions and recommendations from those I trust. I could use online ratings, but I’m aware that they’re unreliable. And in any case, a provider’s outcomes need contextualization. I look to my doctor’s degrees and certifications, which assure me that they have mastered their subject matter, but not how well they practice it. Moreover, doctors don’t work alone; they rely on their peers and institutions. Absent insider knowledge, it’s very hard to know for sure.

Anti-intellectualism and education reform

Anti-intellectualism and education reform

Kappan
3/26/2020
The founders of the nation’s public school system aimed to provide all students with a liberal education, but in recent decades, reformers have all but forgotten that mission.

Liberal Education Confronts the Rise of Democracy: Yale’s Reports of 1828

Liberal Education Confronts the Rise of Democracy: Yale’s Reports of 1828

The University Of Chicago Press Journals
9/1/2019
The Yale Reports of 1828 are one of the most important documents in American higher education. They established the parameters of liberal education for much of the nineteenth century. Scholars have argued over whether the reports looked to the past or the future. This essay argues that the Yale Reports inaugurated a new era for the humanities and American liberal education. By publishing their ideas and subjecting them to the give and take of public opinion, Yale’s officers and faculty members recognized that, in a democracy, citizens would determine the value of liberal education, rather than the other way around. The Yale Reports thus signified a transformation in the epistemological foundations of liberal education. In a democratic society, advocates would need to make a case for liberal education before an already-enfranchised citizenry. In short, with the Yale Reports, the humanities entered a new historical phase, in which they would be tested by, but also contribute to, democratic culture and politics.

Is Jefferson a Founding Father of Democratic Education? A Response to “Jefferson and the Ideology of Democratic Schooling”

Does the Common Core Further Democracy? A Response to “The Common Core and Democratic Education: Examining Potential Costs and Benefits to Public and Private Autonomy”

Democracy & Education
4/29/2018
The Common Core does not advance democratic education. Far from it, the opening section of the language standards argues that the goal of public K–12 education is “college and career readiness.” Only at the end of their introductory section do the Common Core’s authors suggest that K–12 education has any goals beyond the economic: learning to read and write well has “wide applicability outside the classroom and work place,” including preparing people for “private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a republic.” The democratic purposes of K–12 education are not goals but, in the Common Core’s words, a “natural outgrowth” of work force preparation.

Social Capital, Civic Labor, and State Capacity in the Early American Republic: Schools, Courts, and Law Enforcement

Path Dependence and the Emergence of Common Schools: Ohio to 1853

Cambridge University Press
12/15/2013
An investment of upward of three millions of dollars in permanent structures, and an annual expenditure of nearly three millions of dollars—nine tenths of which sum last named is produced by taxation—is a financial fact of great significance; while the application of so munificent a provision, under the administration of thirty thousand school officers and twenty thousand teachers, to the education of eight hundred thousand youth, is a fact transcending all material considerations by its relation to the moral and political welfare of the people.

Historiographical Thinking: Towards a New Approach to Preparing History Teachers

Historiographical Thinking: Towards a New Approach to Preparing History Teachers

Taylor & Francis Online
1/31/2012
This article draws upon writings by social studies educators and historians to articulate a new approach to training history teachers. We argue that the divide between advocates of historical thinking and of historical content can be overcome through a better understanding of what it means to know history. By examining the nature of the historical discipline, we argue that historiographical knowledge, or learning through reading and criticizing secondary historical texts in relation to each other, may better prepare teachers to think about history. Such an approach can improve teachers’ knowledge of the past and their awareness of the interpretive nature of all historical writing. Historiographical training can also give teachers the tools to stay current in the field. This essay defines historiographical knowledge, demonstrates how historiographical knowledge offers a more accurate view of how history is constructed, and suggests how historiographical knowledge can inform a range of pedagogical approaches in social studies and history classrooms.