Popular
Histories
The
numerous efforts at popular treatment of Connecticut history all
manifest the dilemma discussed elsewhere in this essay. Written
by journalists and other non-professionals, these books often
fail to discriminate between accepted, documented fact and statements
based on materials of a lower order of evidential credibility.
At the same time, they are written for a less discriminating readership.
The result is that those works which require the best-trained
historical approach are the very works that are read by the audience
least able to discriminate. Thus are myths elaborated and disseminated
and brought into public judgments of public policy. Until professional
historians learn to write for the public, we will be victimized
by public policy so ill-informed.
George
L. Clark's A History of Connecticut: Its People and Institutions
(New York: G. P. Putnam's, 1914) is a heavy tome, which might
be listed among works by scholars except that the book is a conscious
effort to popularize Connecticut history. The organization is
chronological, but interspersed are several chapters on social
subjects that give meaning to the word "People" in Clark's
subtitle. He is interested in everyday life, and teachers can
send students to chapters titled "How People Lived in the
Early Days," "Slavery," "Early Manufactures
and Commerce," "Education," "Transportation,"
"The Poor Law," etc, with confidence. Clark even includes
a chapter called "The City," an historiographic rarity
in 1914. Like all other historical works, this one tells us something
about the age in which it was written, as well as the ages it
was written about. "The city," writes Clark, "abounds
in appeals to the pocketbook, and thus threatens a needful thrift;
it offers a variety of entertainments, musical, theatrical, pictorial
ranging in price from a nickle to two dollars. All this reminds
us that a new age is upon us, and more sturdy wills are needed
to keep the people sound, pure, economical and self-controlled,
than in simpler times." (p. 550) Elsewhere he assures us
that though "the cities are becoming peopled to a considerable
extent by the foreign born ... this does not necessarily call
for anxiety ... for... the teachers in our public schools assure
us that in regularity of attendance, eagerness to learn, and brain
power, the children of the foreign-born hold their own with the
Connecticut Yankees." (p. 549) Despite the biases of its
time, the work should not be discounted. Clark was careful, and
his manuscript was read and corrected by a number of knowledgeable
scholars, including the best of them all, Charles M. Andrews.
The book includes 120 interesting illustrations and three maps.
Other
popular works that attempt to address the full scope of Connecticut
history or to sum up the "Connecticut experience" are
listed here:
Allis,
Marguarite. Connecticut Trilogy New York: G. P. Putnam's,
1934. This book, charmingly written, mixes fact with fiction indiscriminately
in an effort "to preserve only such folk-lore as has been
handed down in the various communities for at least a century."
(p. xi) The book is organized by towns and was republished in
the same year from the same plates, but with the addition of twenty
photographs by Samuel Chamberlain (Grosset and Dunlap, 1934),
which must have given G. P. Putnam's considerable grief.
Beals,
Carleton. 0ur Yankee Heritage. This book is so full of
historical errors that it cannot be recommended. Beals used the
same title for histories of Bristol (1954) and New Haven (1951).
Burpee,
Charles Winslow. The Story of Connecticut: Its People and Institutions.
New York: The American Historical Company, 1939. This book must
be mentioned because it is found in so many libraries around the
state. It consists of four huge volumes printed on slick paper
and copiously illustrated. It is intended for a popular audience,
but is dull and plodding, and highly derivative. There is little
point in consulting the first two volumes of narrative material.
Volumes III and IV, "Personal and Family Records," contain
hundreds of short biographies of Connecticut men and a few women
of small and great prominence still alive in 1939. The biographies
will be useful to researchers studying late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century
Connecticut society. It is a very heavy work-on our scale, thirty-two
pounds.
Horace
Bushnell. "The Age of Homespun. A Discourse Delivered at
Litchfield, Conn., on the Occasion of the Centennial Celebration,
1851," Litchfield County Centennial Celebration.
Hartford, Edwin Hunt, 1851
This
23 page speech is the archetype of the mid 19th century
nostalgic reminiscence of pre-industrial era. It presents a highly
romanticized picture of life at the turn of the century in Connecticut's
country towns. It enjoyed immense popularity and was reprinted
over and over again.
It
was given on August 14,1851.
Carpenter,
William, and Arthur, T. S., eds. The History of Connecticut
From its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. Philadelphia,
1854. This was prepared as one of a set of state histories in
cheap editions for the general public. Called a "Cabinet
History," it consists of 287 small pages. It is hard to find,
and there is no point in looking for it.
G.
Fox and Co., Highways and Byways of Connecticut. Hartford:
G. Fox, 1947. This prints the text of about 300 five-minute radio
talks on Connecticut's towns and mountains, together with thumb-nail
sketches of all the governors to 1947. We have not checked them
for accuracy: there are better sources for such information.
Lee,
William Storrs. The Yankees of Connecticut. New York: Henry
Holt, 1957. This book is nicely conceived and well done. We have
not checked it for accuracy. Lee says that "these seventeen
essays on as many aspects of the Yankees of Connecticut are a
fresh inquiry For his critics to assess" (p. xi) He has chapters
titled, for instance, "Mariners," "Pedagogs,"
"Tinkers," and "Lawgivers." Emphasis is on
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Roth,
David M. Connecticut: A Bicentennial History. New York:
Norton, 1979. This essay of about 230 pages in The States and
the Nation series is the only recent book covering the full
scope of Connecticut history. It is designed for the general reader
and for that reason has a minimum of scholarly apparatus and a
modest index. Roth relies perhaps too much on the Pequot series
for use in high schools (see under Addazio), but there is no reason
why his book couldn't be used at that level also. It is brisk
and readable.
Shepard,
Odell. Connecticut Past and Present. New York: Knopf, 1939.
Shepard disclaims any attempt to impart information; indeed, he
even wonders if he is competent to write about a place he is so
in love with. This is a loving interpretation by a former lieutenant
governor for a popular audience.
Shepard
had done some research in secondary sources, but mostly writes
out of his own experiences and intuitions. He accepts the Johnston-Fiske
myth that the U.S. House and Senate are modeled on the Connecticut
General Assembly. Indeed, his book is the grand repository of
virtually every myth of the Connecticut Yankee character ever
known. He was no mossback, however, and treats adequately and
sympathetically the new immigrant domination of the population
and evinces a pro-labor bias in a brief section in chapter 18
(p. 281). Nevertheless, this is not a book anyone needs to spend
time with.
Sterry,
Iveagh H., and Garrigus, William H. They Found a Way: Connecticut’s
Restless People. Brattleboro, 1938. This is the sort of popular
history that should be kept out of the hands of children and unwary
adults. It is full of legend and long-exposed myths put out as
though they were true. One would do much better with Peals, Lee,
or Roth.
Todd,
Charles Purr. In Olde Connecticut: Being a Record of Quaint,
Curious and Romantic Happenings There in Colonie Times and Later.
New York: The Grafton Press, 1906. The title gives it away, but
Todd attempts only an "adequate presentation of the picturesque
in American history." He hopes his book "will rehabilitate
the life of our ancestors with a vividness rivaling that of the
historical novel" but with "fidelity to fact."
Readers can make their own judgments as to vividness; as to facts,
he fails miserably. A miscellany of little interest.
|
