1890s: 1898

Looking to round out the 19th Century and begin transitioning to the next, I read David Traxel's 1898: The Birth of the American Century to learn more about the events leading up to and during the Spanish American War and how results of the conflict officially changed America's role in international relations.

In hindsight, the events of this year do seem to be a natural termination of the trends of the previous four decades.

Formal reconstruction and recovery from the Civil War was more or less over, with a new economic, political, and race relations equilibrium established. And the generation of the war was beginning to hand over the reigns to the next. I had never contemplated the concerns of having US troops on their way to Cuba pass through the American South--this was the first time since the Civil War/Reconstruction and no one knew how the public would react. The fact that they were cheered is telling of how the country's focus and priorities had changed in just a few years.

The changing of national focus had been seen in the fast migration and "taming" of the West, which had an almost sudden end, as the frontier was officially gone by the 1890s. Industrialization, with its urban focus and complementary need for trade, including international trade, to keep the economic engine churning was leading to a new interest in foreign conerns--a"foreign" concept to the isolated mentality established with the Revolution.

Urbanization and communications had allowed the media to emerge as major players in the country's actions, with the popular lead up to the war by the competing newspapers and their moguls as the classic example of creating news. It seems almost too neat of a story, with figures too large for life.

Traxel's book is okay. Not great, but readable and interesting enough. 2/5 stars. The main portion of the book is the war, but it is sandwiched between general survey history chapters on various cultural and political topics.

The book did, however, feel like a movie that was written with a sequel in mind.

The Germans were being set up as a future bully / enemy with their actions in the Philippines. The year ended with the European powers now having to consider America as a player in their events. And Teddy Roosevelt, after his introduction a few books ago, is emerging as a big hero.

Late 1800s: Settling the West

Aside from slavery, the driving concept of 19th Century America was manifest destiny. Given the vastness of the western United States, especially for anyone who has driven cross-country, and the imagery of the small, primitive wagon trains and cowboys on horses, it is amazing how quickly the thousands of miles were settled and transformed.

The decades leading up the Civil War resulted in acquiring more land from Mexico and Britain, and moving Native Americans to lands west of the Mississippi. Then coming out of the war, with technology advancements in transportation and economic shifts, the stage was set for a sudden expansion into an apparent void.

The American West is more or less a collection of short histories of various events and topics related to the settling of the states between the Mississippi and California in the second half of the century. Dee Brown is the author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee so his stories of the major "Indian Wars" are well documented and, naturally, very sad. Each one seems to further reduce ways of life along with territories. While George Washington and other early presidents may have struggled with the issue of Native Americans, the lack of national concern after the Civil War to the situation versus the speed of, essentially, annihilation over the course of just a few decades is astounding.

The other chapters in the book are quite secondary, providing a good overview of the development of the cattle industry, stories of colorful characters and events. But the narratives do not tie together as well as they could and much fell flat. 2/5 stars.

(Read July 2010)

1870s: Reconstruction

I almost skipped over the one topic that is probably the most glossed over in school history classes--Reconstruction--but I knew I really need to understand more of what happened, and why, to former slaves specifically, and the country as a whole coming out of the Civil War. I started this reading project with a primary interest in economic history but it is easy to get wrapped up in just the basic political history. But this time period was one of the most crucial turning points for the country's economy, government, and social institutions that would determine the course of the United States in the future.

And this is to not diminish the profound impact for an entire race of people.

Prior readings of the issues leading up the founding of the Republican Party soon before the War and its cast of characters from different backgrounds, regions, and priorities gave great context for how the party would not be in position to govern and manage such a massive transition. While Lincoln presumably would have been a more effective and visionary leader than the disastrous Andrew Johnson, there is no evidence that a cohesive and forward-looking plan could have been politically or practically implemented. The moderates and radicals and even Democrats each had opportunities to run things, but none were able to provide a stable new equilibrium for former slaves labor, investing in the Southern economies, reintroducing the former Confederacy into the Union, or establishing civil rights.

From the perspective of the 21st Century I still cannot fully grasp the mindset of 1870 Americans. Only a few years prior slavery was accepted practice. Even the most radical anti-slavery factions would probably be considered bigots today. The average moderate thinking was somewhere in between. Even if they were able to have the vision for integrating the former slaves into a fully equal civil society by today's standards, would they have been able to create a path to move in that direction while achieving the immediate goals of rebuilding the Southern economy and politically reintroducing former confederates? I would love to hope so, but it is doubtful.

This book by Eric Foner was much more of an investment to read than I expected, but well worth it. While it is not a fast flowing narrative, I will give it 4/5 stars due to the comprehensive coverage of an important, underrated subject matter. He is very detailed in the blow by blow accounts of what happened and didn't happen in the years 1863-1877, showing how the different constituencies of each region in the South and North had competing goals and incentives throughout the period and the worked together when it suited their own needs, and competed when it didn't. This meant that the make up of the political parties, especially the Republicans, could change from state to state, geographic region to geographical region, and over time. For the former slaves, this meant they were at the mercy of political alignments focused on various economic issues. And unfortunately for them, there were few groups in the country that saw personal economic benefits of a newly freed class of workers. A few saw benefits of a new voting bloc, and very few saw altruistic motives for helping them.

Foner's analysis of regional politics shows the vast differences of issues and action in places such as Louisiana with a large former free black society and sugar economy, versus the upcountry Carolinas with smaller farms and a large poor white population, versus the cotton belt counties that were plantation dominated. He also did a great service tracking the progress of specific issues such as the development of education in the south where it is easy to see how the institutions of the 20th Century were established. Many times I thought while reading, "so these are the events that will lead to a landmark Supreme Court decision 80 years in the future." We're now how many generations out of Reconstruction? And we're still untangling the mess, even if it was inevitable.

(Read June 2010)

1890s: Benjamin Harrison

The unlikely subject of my next reading assignment came about not because of my personal interest in Indiana history, but because his name appeared in several of the previous books, even if ever so briefly. And yes, his house in Indianapolis is next on my visit hit list of homes of obscure presidents. Hello, Benjamin Harrison.

Between the author's obligatory introduction and conclusion that make the case of Harrison as the first modern president and least appreciated, there is a surprisingly contemporary story of national politics, economics, and personal toll. Similar to Lincoln, Harrison was not the favorite candidate entering the nominating process but he emerged as the least objectionable and possibly the most winnable Republican. And like Lincoln, once elected he struggled with the selection of his cabinet, eventually convincing his biggest rival to take the secretary of state position. While we heard many comparisons to Lincoln when Obama chose Clinton for this position, Harrison's choice of James Blaine may be the better parallel. And unlike the amazing relationship formed between Lincoln and Seward during a unique, wartime situation, Harrison and Blaine continued to be rivals, one of the causes of their eventual downfall.

Also strikingly similar to modern political patterns was how similar 1892 was to 1994 and to what is expected in 2010. After several years of Democratic power in the 1880s and a down business cycle, the Republicans swept the presidency and both houses of congress in 1890. Seeing a mandate for significant change, they immediately pushed for large, expansive legislation to increase the services provided by the federal government, along with its budget. While several of the issues were clearly progressive and great with historical perspective (ie enforcing black, southern suffrage) and some are possibly as debatable now as they were then (pensions, anti-trust, monetary policies), internal party politics limited the effectiveness of a seemingly unstoppable platform. Senators and congressmen were more likely to vote based on what would get them re-elected and strike deals than just go with the president's favor. Yet still in the midterm elections of 1892, the Republicans lost control of Congress due to public dissatisfaction, and Harrison finally lost re-election two years later.

The foreign relations and economic monetary issues of the early 1890s are clearly primitive to the US and global economy of today. However, the questions and decisions made at this time were beginning to move the country's role from a self-contained, decentralized nation of states to an industrialized national power.

Here comes the Spanish American War and the battle of Populists and Progressives.

The book itself is good and typical of this solid series: 3/5 stars.

But before continuing on I realize I have skipped over some important subjects so I am going to go back a little. Primarily I need to read up on Reconstruction in the South.

(Read March 2010)

1890s: The Industrialists

The Gilded Age has always been a fascinating, if not romantic era to me with its larger-than-life capitalists, the shaping relationship with labor, the exponential growth of the economy, and the literal laying out of the infrastructure for the 20th Century. While focusing on the love-hate, and then mostly hate relationship of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, this book does a decent job of describing some of the cultural and personal tensions that emerged as America industrialized. There were certainly cases of Horatio Alger rags to riches, as Carnegie himself almost symbolized. But for the masses this was not the case, and the romantic era was actually covered in soot, dangerous, and filled with limited earning power and opportunities for the vast, vast majority of individuals. While Carnegie appeared to internally struggle with this fact while at the same time allowing his sheer power and money to keep his own labors at bay, the author paints a picture of a more ruthless Frick who had no such notions of tension. Whether accurate representations of their own mindsets, the overall story is a good representation of a pivotal time in this country's development and tensions that grew and evolved into major story lines throughout the next century and still exist in a form today.

Book review: 2/5 stars. As the author noted there are many in depth biographies of the two main characters already published so he tried to create a narrative around their relationship. The middle part of the brief book told the story of the Homestead strike and riot that he tried to use to illustrate a turning point in their relationship. While that story was probably the most interesting part of the book, his argument feels incomplete and it is essentially a story within a story.

(Read February 2010)

1880s: Building the Brooklyn Bridge

To explore the era of exploding industrialization, grand visions, and changing infrastructure that begin shaping the country for its tremendous economic growth in the 20th Century, I started with the story of the Brooklyn Bridge. After living in New York and purchasing the bridge from a guy on the street, I figured it was a good artifact to learn about how it came to be.

David McCullough is one of my favorite history authors, so this book has been on my hit list for some time. The story was particularly appropriate for this era as the father and son team of Roeblings as the grand visionaries and the engineering, construction, political, and financing teams around them represent the transition from antebellum world of modest capital projects to the grand projects made possible by the exponentially improving technology and shared intelligence of the late 19th Century. And maybe more important, as told through the side stories of this book, the increasingly complex layers of politics, financing, and human inputs that evolved with the technology.

Add this story in context of where New York had been up to that point and how its growth exploded soon afterward, both physical, population, and economic, and it is too obvious to see this as a metaphor as a bridging of the old with the new. But this is clearly the first chapter of a new volume for New York, soon to be included with the consolidation of the boroughs, the works of Olmsted and Vaux such as Central Park, the building of the subway, and culminating with the story of Robert Moses. (Robert Caro's The Power Broker, would be part of this reading project if I hadn't already read it. Highly recommended.)

The book itself is 4/5 stars. I love McCullough's usual great balance of story telling and original source work, but as can be the case, the book maybe lingers a little too long on some technical details for the sake of thoroughness. Any of the "subplots", such as the lives of the father, son, and wife; Tammany Hall; or just the engineering breakthroughs are worthy of their own books for deeper inspection, if that is possible.

The other book I would have read for this era, if not already a favorite on my shelf, is Ambrose's Nothing Like it in the World about the building of the transcontinental railroad.

I am probably going to linger on the end of the 19th Century for a little while longer. Several biographies of ecnomic empire builders are tempting me.

(Read fall 2009)

1870s: Grant

Written by a military historian, the book focuses more on Grant's lead up to and leadership during the Civil War. There is more detail for certain battles and war decisions than for parts of the Presidency. But all in all, that is probably appropriate for describing him, and arguably more important to the country.

(Read July 2009)