Almost chosen people: oblique biographies in the American grain PDF
Preview Almost chosen people: oblique biographies in the American grain
Almost Chosen People : Oblique title: Biographies in the American Grain author: Zuckerman, Michael. publisher: University of California Press isbn10 | asin: 0520066510 print isbn13: 9780520066519 ebook isbn13: 9780585116761 language: English National characteristics, American, United subject States--Civilization, United States-- Biography. publication date: 1993 lcc: E169.1.Z883 1993eb ddc: 973/.099 National characteristics, American, United subject: States--Civilization, United States-- Biography. Page i Almost Chosen People Page iii A CENTENNIAL BOOK One hundred books published between 1990 and 1995 bear this special imprint of the University of California Press. We have chosen each Centennial Book as an example of the Press's finest publishing and bookmaking traditions as we celebrate the beginning of our second century. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Founded in 1893 Page v Almost Chosen People Oblique Biographies in the American Grain Michael Zuckerman UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley / Los Angeles / Oxford Page vi University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. Oxford, England © 1993 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zuckerman, Michael, 1939- Almost chosen people: oblique biographies in the American grain / Michael Zuckerman. p. cm. "A Centennial book" P. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0520066510 (alk. paper) 1. National characteristics, American. 2. United States Civilization. 3. United StatesBiography. I. Title. E169.1.Z883 1993 973'.099dc20 925779 Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984. Page vii To Sharon Ann Holt my chosen person Page ix Contents Introduction 1 1 21 The Fabrication of Identity in Early America 2 55 The Social Context of Democracy in Massachusetts 3 77 Pilgrims in the Wilderness: Community, Modernity, and the Maypole at Merry Mount 4 97 The Family Life of William Byrd 5 145 The Selling of the Self: From Franklin to Barnum 6 175 The Power of Blackness: Thomas Jefferson and the Revolution in St. Domingue 7 219 The Nursery Tales of Horatio Alger Page x 8 239 Faith, Hope, Not Much Charity: The Optimistic Epistemology of Lewis Mumford 9 260 Dr. Spock: The Confidence Man 10 288 Ronald Reagan, Charles Beard, and the Constitution: The Uses of Enchantment Page 1 Introduction Maybe it was bound to turn out as it did. Maybe I only fasten on Frances as an emblem. Maybe I still see the world more than I would wish through my mother's eyes. Certainly my mother did her gentle best to shield me from Frances. The woman affronted every aspiration by which my mother lived and wished the rest of her brood to liveevery aspiration but one. My mother cherished family as much as she treasured respectability and refinement. And Frances was as much my father's sister as Aunt Elsie and Aunt Fritzi were. My mother was a paragon of propriety. She framed my fate. She shaped my sense of goodness, truth, and beauty in ways I will never shake. But she could not keep me from my fascination with Frances. When I was five years old, Franceswhom I could never comfortably call Aunt Francesfrightened me. Small children dwell unduly on the external aspects of things. My other uncles and aunts were attractive men and women. Uncle Murry was to me more dashing than the stars of the Saturday matinees. Aunt Sheila was even more ethereally, angelically beautiful than my mother. But even when I was ten, and twelve, and fourteen, Frances still made me feel deeply uneasy. Try as I would, I could not get around it. She seemed to me truly a hag. In the memories that still tease at me, she is toothless. I know that she was not. Reason rebukes recollection, assuring me that she was merely missing some teeth. But reason does not dispel my feeling that there was something craggy and fierce about her,
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