What Hath God Wrought (127 page)

A fascinating book on the Erie Canal is Carol Sheriff,
The Artificial River
(1996). Also see Evan Cornog,
The Birth of Empire: DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience
(1998); Steven Siry,
DeWitt Clinton and the American Political Economy
(1990); Ronald Shaw,
Canals for a Nation
(1990); and Carter Goodrich, ed.,
Canals and American Economic Development
(1961). Robert G. Albion,
The Rise of New York Port
(New York, 1939) is a classic. The lives of the workers who dug North American canals are described in Peter Way,
Common Labour
(1993).

On the communications revolution and its political and economic implications, Richard R. John,
Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse
(1995) is a broader study than its title might suggest. Also valuable are Allan Pred,
Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information
(1973); Richard Kielbowicz,
News in the Mail
(1989); Gerald Baldasty,
The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century
(1992); Richard D. Brown,
The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry
(1996); and Donald Cole,
A Jackson Man: Amos Kendall
(2004). On literacy and its consequences, see William Gilmore,
Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life
(1989); Richard D. Brown,
Knowledge Is Power
(1989); and Dan Headrick,
When Information Came of Age
(2000). The cultural implications of mail are explored in David Henkin,
The Postal Age
(2006). For newspapers, see William Huntzicker,
The Popular Press
(1999); Bernard Weisberger,
The American Newspaperman
(1961); Rosalind Remer,
Printers and Men of Capital
(1996); Robert C. Williams,
Horace Greeley
(2006); and Jonathan Sarna,
Jacksonian Jew: The Two Worlds of Mordecai Noah
(1981). A fine study of the mechanization of paper-making, so important to the expansion of print, is Judith McGaw,
Most Wonderful Machine
(1987). For interaction between the communications revolution and religion see Candy Gunther Brown,
The Word in the World
(2004); Wayne Fuller,
Morality and the Mail in Nineteenth-Century America
(2003); Leonard Sweet, ed.,
Communication and Change in American Religious History
(1993); David Reynolds,
Faith in Fiction
(1981); and David Paul Nord,
Evangelical Origins of Mass Media in America
(1984) and
Faith in Reading
(2004).

The best places to learn about Morse and his telegraph are: Paul Starr,
The Creation of the Media
(2004), chap. 5; Kenneth Silverman,
Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse
(2003); David Hochfelder, “Taming the Lightning: American Telegraphy as a Revolutionary Technology” (Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1999); Menahem Blondheim,
News over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844–1897
(1994); James Carey,
Communication as Culture
(1989), chap. 8; Richard R. John,
Spreading the News
(1995); and Jill Lepore,
A is for American
(2002), chap. 6. A lucid popular account is Tom Standage,
The Victorian Internet
(1998). Also helpful are Lewis Coe,
The Telegraph
(1993); George Oslin,
The Story of Telecommunications
(1992); Daniel Czitrom,
Media and the American Mind
(1982), chap. 1; Brooke Hindle,
Emulation and Invention
(1981), chaps. 4–6; and Robert Thompson,
Wiring a Continent
(1947). For the effects of telegraphy on accurate timekeeping, see Ian Bartky,
Selling the True Time: Nineteenth-century Timekeeping in America
(2000). An excellent work on Morse as a painter is Paul Staiti,
Samuel F. B. Morse
(1989).

Partly because of the communications revolution, nineteenth-century history throughout the Western world concerned public opinion as never before. Readers with a taste for German social theory can explore this subject through Jurgen Habermas,
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
, trans. by Thomas Burger (1989; first pub. in German in 1962).

Some of the finest political history written about this period consists of state and local studies that transcend their seemingly narrow focus. Of broad interest are Lee Benson,
The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case
(1961); Ronald Formisano,
The Birth of Mass Political Parties, Michigan, 1827–1861
(1971) and
The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts, 1790s–1840s
(1983); Gerald Leonard,
The Invention of Party Politics in Jacksonian Illinois
(2002); Marc Kruman,
Parties and Politics in North Carolina
(1983); Donald Ratcliffe,
The Politics of Long Division: The Birth of the Second Party System in Ohio
(2000); Mills Thornton,
Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama, 1800–1860
(1978); and Harry Watson,
Jacksonian Politics and Community Conflict: Cumberland County, North Carolina
(1981).

Other insightful works on political ideas and behavior include Marvin Meyers,
The Jacksonian Persuasion
(1960); Robert Kelley,
The Cultural Pattern in American Politics
(1979); Michael Heale,
The Presidential Quest, 1787–1852
(1982); Richard P. McCormick,
The Presidential Game
(1982); Robert Swierenga, “Ethnoreligious Political Behavior in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in
Religion and American Politics
, ed. Mark Noll (1990); Joel Silbey,
The American Political Nation, 1838–1893
(1991); Michael Holt,
Political Parties and American Political Development
(1992); David Greenstone,
The Lincoln Persuasion
(1993); and Mark Neely,
American Political Culture in the Civil War Era
(2005). David Currie,
The Constitution in Congress: Democrats and Whigs, 1829–1861
(2005) is quirky but interesting.

Robert Remini’s three-volume biography of Jackson is laudatory and thorough:
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767–1821
(1977);
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom, 1822–1832
(1981);
Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833–1845
(1984). There is still much useful material in James Parton,
Life of Andrew Jackson
, 3 vols. (1861). Two studies of Old Hickory’s personality are James C. Curtis,
Andrew Jackson and the Search for Vindication
(1976) and Andrew Burstein,
The Passions of Andrew Jackson
(2003). For delightful anecdotes, read Marquis James,
Andrew Jackson
(1937). Richard Hofstadter’s classic essay on Jackson appears in
The American Political Tradition
(1948).

Samuel Flagg Bemis’s two-volume biography of John Quincy Adams is an enduring masterpiece:
John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy
(1949);
John Quincy Adams and the Union
(1956). Other treatments include Paul Nagel,
John Quincy Adams
(1997); Lynn Parsons,
John Quincy Adams
(1998); and Leonard Richards’s negative assessment of
Congressman John Quincy Adams
(1986). Robert Remini,
Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union
(1991) is thorough and workmanlike; more sympathetic are Maurice Baxter,
Henry Clay and the American System
(1995) and Clement Eaton,
Henry Clay and the Art of American Politics
(1957). Biographies of Daniel Webster include those by Robert Remini (1997) and Irving Bartlett (1978), as well as Maurice Baxter,
One and Inseparable
(1984). See also Merrill Peterson,
The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun
(1987). Charles Wiltse,
John C. Calhoun
, 3 vols. (1944–51) has become dated. John Niven,
John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union
(1988) is sound. See also Gerald M. Capers,
John C. Calhoun: Opportunist
(1960) and Irving Bartlett,
John C. Calhoun
(1993).

The young Abraham Lincoln figures in the history of these years as state legislator and member of Congress. Of the vast literature on him, the books most useful to me were Richard Carwardine,
Lincoln
(2003); Allen Guelzo,
Abraham Lincoln, Redeemer President
(1999); David Herbert Donald,
Lincoln
(1995); Gabor Boritt,
Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream
(1978); and Reinhard Luthin,
The Real Abraham Lincoln
(1960).

Valuable biographies of other leading political figures include Charles Sellers,
JamesK. Polk,
2 vols. (1957–66); Glyndon Van Deusen,
William Henry Seward
(1967); Ralph Ketcham,
James Madison
(1971); Harry Ammon,
James Monroe
(1971); Robert Dawidoff,
The Education of John Randolph
(1979); John Niven,
Martin Van Buren and the Romantic Age of American Politics
(1983); Donald Cole,
Martin Van Buren and the American Political System
(1984); John Eisenhower,
Agent of Destiny, Winfield Scott
(1997); and Allan Peskin,
Winfield Scott and the Profession of Arms
(2003). Imaginative and readable collections of short biographies of people from varied walks of life include Joyce Appleby, ed.,
Recollections of the Early Republic
(1997); Jill Lepore,
A is for American
(2002); Michael Morrison, ed.,
The Human Tradition in Antebellum America
(2000), and Norman Risjord,
Representative Americans: The Romantics
(2001).

The standard account of the War of 1812 is Donald Hickey,
The War of 1812
(1989); also very helpful are Robert Quimby,
The U.S. Army in the War of 1812
(1997); J.C.A. Stagg,
Mr. Madison’s War
(1983); John K. Mahon,
The War of 1812
(1972); and Anthony Pitch,
The Burning of Washington
(1998). David and Jeanne Heidler,
The War of 1812
(2002) is a handy textbook. For the impact of the war on domestic politics, see Steven Watts,
The Republic Reborn
(1987); James Banner,
To the Hartford Convention
(1970); and Linda Kerber,
Federalists in Dissent
(1970). On Jackson’s great victory, see Robert Remini,
The Battle of New Orleans
(1999); Robin Reilly,
The British at the Gates
(1974); Frank Owsley Jr.,
The Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands
(1981); and Wilburt Brown,
The Amphibious Campaign for West Florida and Louisiana
(1969). For what Americans made of it, see John William Ward,
Andrew Jackson, Symbol for an Age
(1955).

For the wars with the Barbary pirates, see A.B.C. Whipple,
To the Shores of Tripoli
(1991); Robert Allison,
The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776–1815
(1995); Paul Baepler, ed.,
White Slaves, African Masters: Barbary Captivity Narratives
(1993); John B. Wolf,
The Barbary Coast
(1979); and Frederick Leiner,
The End of Barbary Terror
(2006).

Christopher Clark,
Social Change in America: From the Revolution Through the Civil War
(2006) provides an excellent overview of its subject. Paul Conkin, “The American Economy in 1815,” in his
Prophets of Progress
(1980), supplies a succinct starting point. Also helpful are the varied essays in Cathy Matson, ed.,
The Economy of Early America
(2006). For the family farming economy, see Christopher Clark,
The Roots of Rural Capitalism
(1990); Winifred Rothenberg,
From Market-Places to a Market Economy
(1992); David Danbom,
Born in the Country: A History of Rural America
(1995); Joyce Appleby,
Inheriting the Revolution
(2000); Allan Kulikoff,
From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers
(2000); Martin Bruegel,
Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of a Market Society in the Hudson Valley
(2002); and David R. Meyer,
Roots of American Industrialization
(2003). Despite the author’s preoccupation with unhelpful Marxist terminology, there is much helpful information in Allan Kulikoff,
The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism
(1992). Rural white America in the early nineteenth century is evoked in Jack Larkin,
The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790–1840
(1988); Jane Nylander,
Our Own Snug Fireside
(1993); and Priscilla Brewer,
From Fireplace to Cookstove
(2000). For the roles of husbands and wives, see Nancy Osterud,
Bonds of Community
(1991); Hendrik Hartog,
Man and Wife in America
(2000); Carole Shammas,
A History of Household Government in America
(2002); and Catherine Kelly,
In the New England Fashion
(1999).