Simon Henderson - Aspects of American History

Aspects of American History presents a fresh and succinct analysis of a selection of major events, individuals and ideas in the history of the United States. The essays are linked by a broad framework of central themes race, citizenship and American identity giving the reader access to a new interpretation of US history. In each essay Simon Henderson:

Arranged chronologically from the birth of the nation to the war on terror each chapter in Aspects works as a stand-alone, topic-focused stimulus for further debate, while the central themes that run through the book enable readers to make comparisons and trace major developments across American history. This is an invaluable resource for anyone looking for an engaging general survey of US history.

Simon Henderson is a secondary school history teacher and part-time PhD student whose major research interests are American race relations.

First published 2009
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

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2009 Simon Henderson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Henderson, Simon, 1979
Aspects of American history / Simon Henderson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. United StatesHistory. I. Title.
E178.6.H46 2009
973dc22
2008037952

ISBN 0-203-88129-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-42341-4 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-415-42342-2 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-88129-X (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-42341-0 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-42342-7 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-88129-3 (ebk)

FOR MY PARENTS THE BEST TEACHERS

During the writing of this book I have been very fortunate to benefit from the expertise of several outstanding scholars in various aspects of the American past. Without ever having met me personally, the following have kindly read and commented on drafts of the essays in this volume: Edward Ayers, Philip Morgan, Michael Holt, Eric Foner, Heather Cox Richardson, William Freehling, Frederick Hoxie, Richard Carwardine, James Cone, Margaret Walsh, Lloyd Ambrosius, Michal Rozbicki and Michael Hunt. I thank them sincerely for their time and suggestions.

Susan-Mary Grant has provided me with help, support and expert teaching over many years. Her encouragement and advice during this project are much appreciated. Thanks also to Keith Brewster for his support and understanding as the manuscript increasingly took time away from my ongoing PhD thesis. I am also grateful to Emma Langley, Eve Setch and Alison Yates at Routledge for their help in the development of this book.

Thanks to all my friends, colleagues and students at Teesdale School, especially Cassie, Clare and Ken. Kate, Debbie and Paul have been a great source of encouragement and support. I could not ask for more loving sisters than Rachel and Emma, who have read various essays included in this volume. Finally, this book is dedicated to my parents whose love and support is constant and priceless.

At the conclusion of a trip to Washington DC in the summer of 2007 I was driven to the airport by an Ethiopian taxi driver. He was a US resident who hoped to apply for citizenship in the future. When I asked him why he had moved to America, leaving family behind in his homeland, he spoke of the promise of a better life. The United States, he asserted, gave him the chance to earn money and live his life in safety and freedom. He was not naive or overly idealistic, he talked about the difficulties of his daily existence, problems of healthcare and racial prejudice, but maintained that America was a better place.

The concept of America as a better place is central to the foundation myth of the nation. From the beginning it has consciously struggled to realise exceptionalism. This American promise and the effort to extend it to all peoples in the United States are at the core of my fascination with the history of the nation and provide a central focus for this volume.

Readers who wish to explore a narrative of American history will not be satisfied by the pages that follow. Aspects of American History as the title suggests focuses on specific features of American history. The central themes tying these different aspects together are race, citizenship and American national identity. Although it is true that the development of an Americanness has been constructed through a cultural exchange between various ethnic groups, it is also clear that American national identity has, at various times in the nations past, not embraced racial diversity. The Declaration of Independence to a large extent commits America to a civic nationalism, a shared set of principles and beliefs promoting democracy and freedom bound together by the ideal that all men share equality and liberty. A racial nationalism which saw American identity in terms of ethnic difference has, however, at various times, competed with this civic nationalism. The Constitution, for example, enshrined one facet of racial nationalism by endorsing and protecting slavery. The extent to which citizenship, and consequently full inclusion in the American nation, has been denied to varying racial groups is a major focus of many of the chapters that follow. The struggle over the parameters of that citizenship impacted significantly on the development of an American identity.

American nationalism was also constructed by internal political conflicts about how best to pursue the self-governing experiment. This nationalism did not emerge complete once the shackles of British imperialism had been thrown off. Instead it developed slowly as the nation grew. Influenced by an extremely self-conscious American exceptionalism, the United States was shaped by competing interpretations of the legacy of the American Revolution and how to protect it. These interpretations included rival opinions on the place of ethnic minorities in America and where the boundaries of citizenship should be drawn. In the early twenty-first century the US still contends with the consequences of this important aspect of its past. It is in this context that the themes of race, citizenship and national identity provide the threads which weave the essays in this book together.

This book does not provide an exhaustive survey of all areas of the American past that can be connected to these themes; there are obvious omissions. Furthermore, I am aware that the important place played by class and gender in the emergence of a national identity are not covered in the pages that follow. The reader is reminded, however, that this volume focuses only on certain