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Online NewsHour: A Conversation with Joyce Appleby- May 30, 2000
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A CONVERSATION WITH...
May 30,
2000
Another of our conversations with authors
of new books and to Margaret Warner.
MARGARET WARNER: The book is "Inheriting the Revolution: The First
Generation of Americans." The author is Joyce Appleby, a professor
of history at UCLA. Drawing on hundreds of autobiographies and unpublished
memoirs, she tells the story of the post-independence generation, those
Americans born immediately after the revolutionary war-- men and women
who, from 1790 to 1830, created a brand-new nation and society.
Welcome, Joyce Appleby.
JOYCE APPLEBY, Author, "Inheriting the Revolution:" Thank
you.
MARGARET WARNER: What intrigued you about this generation?
JOYCE APPLEBY: Well, I think just what you said. I was very interested
in what... Who constructed this revolutionary heritage, because we think
of ourselves very much as a nation that starts with a revolution, and
I'm a historian of the revolution and the Constitution, and I was curious
as to how it was interpreted by those people who had no contact with
the colonial era, who had never been subjects of the king, who had none
of the sensibilities and mores that their parents had.
MARGARET WARNER: And was it...did the fact of independence really make
that big a difference?
JOYCE APPLEBY: Yes. It made... Yes, it made an enormous difference.
There are two levels: One, because it created the... a sense that they
had to do something with their lives and with the society, that was
almost as if it were a gift, but it was a gift with a lot of strings
attached to it. And then the other reason why it's important is because
there were other developments that had nothing to do with the United
States, per se-- economic developments, cultural developments-- which
played out very differently for an independent nation than they would
have had the Americans still been under Great Britain.
MARGARET WARNER: Give me one example.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Well, I think the economy is probably as interesting
an example as any, because the economic... The colonial economy had
been organized around what Great Britain wanted, and there were restrictions
on manufacturing, and the colonies were all separate. With independence,
Americans could pioneer new trades. They went to China for the first
time. The first millionaire in America was made in the China trade.
But most importantly were the experiments in manufacturing, and they
were largely unimportant rural lads who had an idea and took advantage
of the water power in all the streams, and rivers, and rivulets-- mainly
in the North-- and pioneered inventions and manufacturing schemes.
MARGARET WARNER: And all these young men became entrepreneurs?
JOYCE APPLEBY: All these young men became entrepreneurs. But it wasn't
just manufacturing, it was also, it was a time of... you know, what
people refer to now, as a "print revolution." There was an
acceleration in the number of things that could be published, and an
increase in literacy, and reading became just a passion for people.
And American leaders realized that reading would help knit the country--
which was pretty scattered in its population-- would help knit them
together around a common set of references, really. And little did they
know that the American public was going to be dying for anything to
read. So that was something they could do in independence-- totally
create their own reading materials, and organizations that relied on
print.
MARGARET WARNER: One of the fascinating things, I thought, in your
book was that you described how many of the qualities that we, today,
think of as essentially "American" really took shape then.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Yes. I think it was a charter generation, and it was
because it was the first generation to live with this revolutionary
inheritance, but also because it was the...very self-consciously being
different in the world. The society was democratizing, it was becoming
more liberal. There was an outpouring of religious enthusiasm, and many
new denominations were formed, so the... Learning to live in this newly-created
public space was what this generation did, and they, sort of, blocked
out the areas that we're still living with.
MARGARET WARNER: On the economic front, you pointed out that the idea
of the independent self-made man was not a concept that was either European
or colonial. It really started now.
JOYCE APPLEBY: That's true, and of course, one of the reasons it started
is because there was an attack on hierarchies of all sorts. Obviously,
the revolution was an attack on the British hierarchy, but after the
revolution, there were... these religious reformers attacked the old-line
churches and their authoritarian ways. Young people-- boys, but even
women-- had a chance to leave their homes and their fathers and strike
out on their own. And so this idea of being independent and autonomous
was able to fulfill itself, because authority in general was deeply
weakened by the revolution and its aftermath.
MARGARET WARNER: And that was even true in the family.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Mm-hmm, probably most true in the family. It's really
fascinating. One of the things I discovered, to my surprise, is how
much conflict there was between young men and their fathers. Their fathers
wanted to still maintain the control that they were used to having over
their adult children, but there were so many opportunities that young
men could leave the farm and do something else, that there would be
this breakup in the family.
MARGARET WARNER: When you say "young," too, one of the statistics
or observations which really struck me was that, I think it was 1820,
58% of all Americans were under the age of 20.
JOYCE APPLEBY: I know. It was very... And comparably young people were
given a great deal of responsibility. I have lots of stories of 14-
year-olds, you know, traveling 100 miles to cash a check, and ensigns
in the Navy who were 14. It was quite fascinating.
MARGARET WARNER: And the huge... and the great mobility that they felt
they had.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Of course, they did have it, because there was now land
that they could move to, and they could move to the city. It was the
array of possibilities that characterizes this period. Even for enslaved
people, there were some possibilities. There was more of an opportunity
to liberate oneself. There, of course, was the abolition movement in
the North. There were the first really significant free black population
in America from this period.
MARGARET WARNER: But you do make the point that for both women, and,
at least, enslaved blacks, this was not the same kind of opportunity
at all.
JOYCE APPLEBY: No, no. Oh, in no way. It was much constricted, though
it's fascinating to me that you cannot liberate that large of a population
and not have it rub off on those that are not officially invited to
be a part of the citizenry, so they did get ideas.
MARGARET WARNER: And then finally, in your book, I found... You know,
it's disheartening. We know what happens with the Civil War, but really
this new generation did, as you put it at one point, really create two
different countries. I mean, not just economically, but in sensibility,
in the North and in the South.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Yes. That is what happened, and that was a surprise
to me to see how soon and how many different influences pour in to differentiate
the north from the south, and create "the North" and "the
South," so they could have a Civil War.
MARGARET WARNER: Why was the institution of slavery so powerful in
shaping these differences? I mean, because as you pointed out, they
weren't just economic.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Well, I think one of the reasons is, because slavery
was coming under criticism, not just in the United States, but in England
and France, and the north took advantage of its having fewer slaves.
Reformers were able to abolish slavery in the North. But this threw
the South on the defensive. You know, people could be anti- slavery,
and deal with it as a philosophical subject. This was something practical
and real; they had abolished it. And that meant that the South anticipated
anything that was going to threaten slavery long before the threat had
even materialized. So they were not very interested in schooling for
everyone. They suppressed publications and circulation of information,
because there were secret threats in almost all of the developments
that are going on in the North that we see as modernizing.
MARGARET WARNER: Which then quashed the kind of entrepreneurialism
that you might have had in the north.
JOYCE APPLEBY: And the freedom for young people. Even teaching, teaching
was a wonderful bridge from young people to get out of the farm and
find out about a larger world. But there were many fewer school districts
in the South. Teaching was associated with radicalism.
MARGARET WARNER: So, based on your research, do you think the civil
war was inevitable?
JOYCE APPLEBY: I do think it was inevitable. As near to inevitable
as you could say. I think, perhaps... It's hard to say "inevitable."
Certainly, you can imagine something that could have..
MARGARET WARNER: But almost determined.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Almost over-determined, yes. Because... Just because
this existence of a free section and a slave section. Because, see,
in the revolution, there was no free section, but after it there was,
and just the existence of those two powerful differences played out
in dozens and dozens of ways during the early decades of the 19th century.
MARGARET WARNER: Well, Joyce Appleby, thanks very much and good luck
with your book.
JOYCE APPLEBY: Thank you.
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