In Memoriam—Robert Wiebe

Z a. 55 S ? In Memoriam—Robert Wiebe JLeu by Chris Beneke ew historians rangedas widely or delvedas deeply into theAmericanpast as Robert Huddleston Wiebe, who died December 10, 2000. Robert Wiebe was best known for his 1 967 book, The Searchfor Order, 1877-1920, which traced the transformation ofAmerican society from a land ofculturally isolated "island communities " to an interdependent, bureaucratized society. Through his elegantly metaphorical prose, Wiebe transported readers to a time when Americans were neither able to control nor fully justify the institutions they had created. Wiebe's next book, The Segmented Society: An Introduction to the Meaning ofAmerica (1975), did not receive anywhere near the same attention. Nonetheless, it established the framework that guided his later work. "What held Americans together," Wiebe contended , "was their ability to live apart." An abundant supply of land, coupled with a willingness to move, made it easy for nineteenth-century Americans to keep their distance. If The Search for Order marked the fall ofa vibrant "white man's democracy," his fourth book. The Opening ofAmerican Society: From the Adoption ofthe Constitution to the Eve ofDisunion (1985), marked its ascent. Opening recounted the dissolution ofa gentry-governed society and the simultaneous creation of democratic social conventions. The abolition of professional standards, the widening of the franchise, and the spread of universalist theologies demonstrated the extent to which ordinary white people were shaping their own society. In the meantime, the hardening of racial lines and the emergence ofan identifiable class ofwage laborers signaled a continued determination to maintain social hierarchies. 16 One of Wiebe's students described him as a "partisan ofAmerican democracy ." It might be more accurate to say that Wiebe was a fan of local democracy . His lifelong study ofAmerican history culminated with the publication of Self-Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy (1996), which extended the historical insights ofhis previous three books and offered a passionate endorsement of decentralized, democratic government. Wiebe admired the brash, spontaneous politics oflodges, town hall meetings, and rough-and-tumble electoral campaigns that characterized the early nineteenth century. For Wiebe, real democracy could not be ceded to distant experts, even progressive ones. Self-seeking and mobile, jealous of their rights and unsettled in their status, Jacksonian era Americans insisted upon defining their own work and choosing their own government . In other words, they insisted upon self-rule. Wiebe lamented that a technocratic "national class" would eventually displace this social and political particularism. But he was too good ofan historian to wax nostalgic for a golden age ofany kind, and his commitment to self-rule was always tempered by his appreciation for the often brutal repression that accompanied white man's democracy. His recent work with the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture, and Community reflected his longstanding dedication to ensuring diat neither exclusion nor intimidation were tolerated. As widely as he ranged in his first five books, Wiebe's final scholarly achievement exceeded them all. Who We Are (forthcoming) moved beyond the confines of the United States to examine the history of nationalism. In work that he first presented at a Historical Society seminar and published in TheJournal ofthe Historical Society Wiebe challenged Benedict Anderson's widely accepted argument, which attributes the growth of nationalism to the spread of print culture. By contrast, Wiebe argued, the enormous volume of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century migrants generated fictive kin networks that extended far past the imaginative boundaries ofearlier communities. Only ifwe consider the impact of mass migration, Wiebe contended, can we account for the simultaneous emergence of nationalism, democracy, and socialism. Each offered their adherents some comfort in the face ofdislocation, "a single common identity to replace particular local ones." Far from being the creation ofa manipulative elite, nationalism spoke to the very real needs ofordinary people, who were not stupid and were not duped. Anyone who questions the extent of Wiebe's scholarly acumen need only consult a short list of his graduate students . Among those he mentored were the prominent women's historians, Ellen Carol DuBois and Robyn Muncy, the military historian Gerald Linderman, the social historian Donald Doyle, and the political historians Harry Watson and Edward Berkowitz. Professor Wiebe never...