Into The Thickets Of Theory And Woods of Reform

The roads are twisting that bring together the two books reviewed here. Professor Mark J. Miller's, Cast Down, Abjection in America, 1700–1850, traces the psychological state of "abjection" as its forms and effects manifested and changed in America between 1700 and 1850. This rough chronology begins with trans-Atlantic revivalism and Jonathan Edwards in the 1720s and concludes with Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, or, Life among the Lowly (1852), followed by an "Epilogue" featuring Herman Melville's Cabin Boy character, Pip, and the concept of "Oriental Blackness." The chronological scope of Professor Philip F. Gura's Man's Better Angels: Romantic Reformers and the Coming of the Civil War is less sweeping. It runs from the financial Panic of 1837 to John Brown's botched raid in the fall of 1859 and the nation's subsequent slide into the horror of the Civil War.

Miller's road is a bit bumpy and a wilder ride, but the authors' books converge in three important respects. Each develops a provocative critique of antebellum American reform, focuses on a mental state, and comes to his subject from a background in historically engaged literary scholarship. Their perspectives on history, however, differ, and in Miller's case, differ from those of many historians. Novel perspectives can be a good thing for those of us looking for new ways of thinking about antebellum reform and American social movements more broadly. Or they can goad us to think more deeply about why we do things the way we do.

I will begin by taking a closer look with Man's Better Angels, a readable and thought-provoking assessment of antebellum reformers and their place in the march into Civil War. It is beautifully written and challenging in its central argument, which focuses on a style of reform Gura calls "romantic" that took hold among "influential antebellum reformers who had been indelibly affected by economic dislocation" that the Panic of 1837 created "and thereupon galvanized to lives of reform" (p. 13).

Gura faults "romantic reformers" for a "misguided faith in human nature" (p. 266). This faith inspired a diverse cohort of reformers to present "imaginative, if frequently specious, ways for Americans to think about how, by improving certain aspects of their personal lives, they could make themselves better, more productive, and potentially successful citizens" (p. 11). By this logic, if the question posed by an antebellum would-be reformer was "if I want to change the world, where do I start?" the answer from seasoned romantic reformers would be "with yourself." In the case of some antebellum reform movements, such as the water cure and phrenology, the beginning would be with you, the seeker, paying me, the reformer, to lead you to self-reform. That self-improvement model comes with costs.

From the beginning, the task Professor Gura set for himself faced potential stumbling-blocks. The first was in selection of representative reformers to give flesh to his argument. The second was stylistic—how to tell, without redundancy, the stories of the seven different people he chose, all keyed to Panic of 1837, the economic and cultural scars it left, and the style of reform it fostered? He handled both problems deftly and not always predictably.

In his roll call of antebellum reformers, several of the usual suspects are missing, with two exceptions. Among those not represented are William Lloyd Garrison, the Grimké sisters, Theodore Dwight Weld, Wendell Phillips, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and other familiar abolitionists. Instead, we have Henry David Thoreau—whose credentials as a reformer are debatable—and John Brown as the end points. They are preceded in separate chapters featuring five lesser-known figures, ones not usually thought of as making the A-list of antebellum reformers.

Gura...