Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740-1870

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6 The American Compromise, 1850-1870: The Synthesis of Popular Education and Professionalism In the United States ... the 1850S witnessed a subsidence of the radical hopes and reactionary fears of the early nineteenth century, and the formation of a more stable, more disciplined, less adventurous culture. 1 During the 1850S and 1860s, the earlier enthusiasms for popular education and the later movement for professionalization achieved a balance in the American museum world. This balance, which may be labeled "the American Compromise," has proved dynamic , with swings in both directions, but has also proved stable enough to last down to the present. The synthesis of popular education and professionalism came about during this era for a complex series of reasons. Among them were a general retreat of the professions before the egalitarianism of American life, the scientists ' fear of alienating religious opinion, the increased emphasis on the importance of popular education as a result of the "free labor" ideology, the desire to preserve the American past, the popularization of the museum idea stemming from the international expositions of the era, and the effects of the Civil War in mobilizing public opinion. All these factors tended to reduce the ardor for professionalism of the 1840S and revive the enthusiasm for popular education. The period from about 1839 to 1849 had well served the budding professions in general and the sciences in particular. The lingering hard times precipitated by the panic of 1837 had dampened the "egalitarian celebration of the self-made man" that had been so pervasive during the 1820S and 1830s.2 Prosperity was The American Compromise 181 finally returning by the late 1840s, and with it came a resurgence of egalitarianism, with its corollary antimonopoly and antiprofessional sentiments. The evolving professions had long run counter to these currents, but by 1850 they began to pull back. One perceptive student of professionalism in America noted that during the 1840s, practitioners sought ever greater professionalization. Then, "about 1850, the professions suddenly appear headed in the opposite direction, recoiling before the great Jacksonian attacks on aristocracy and privilege, falling in with the democratic trend toward conformity. . . . the learned professions were retreating toward mediocrity."3 In a democratic, relatively egalitarian society, the professionals could not afford to be labeled monopolists or aristocrats; hence they arrested their own progress for the time being. The sciences were in the forefront of this general tactical withdrawal among the professions. They were in an especially delicate position, for many of their findings were coming into conflict with the teachings of religion. It would have been bad enough if scientists were to lose public support as a result of being perceived as monopolists; it would have been disastrous if they were considered to be godless or anti-Christian as well. As George Daniels pointed out, "Therefore it was necessary that the very appearance of conflict be avoided; and the burden of avoiding it was on the new professionals."4 Most scientists, therefore, quite simply slowed the pace of their professionalization, and attempted , whenever possible, to emphasize how their results confirmed the wisdom of God's plan. Daniels added, "Scientists continued to justify their work . . . in the dangerous terms of religious value, until late in the nineteenth century. From this position of security, they were later able to rid themselves, almost , from external controls and push their claims of autonomy."5 So the fever for professional science was prudently cooled by its own practitioners, to avoid both charges of monopoly and appearances of godless tendencies. The retreat of the professionals left a void that others were eager to fill. Antislavery forces, which were beginning to coalesce in the early 1850S, shared the ideology of free labor, which held 182 The American Compromise that in America there was a great race oflife, in which any individual could rise from the humblest station to the highest by dint of hard work. In this open competition, any advantage that could make a man a better competitor would be a great boon. And what greater advantage could there be than a good education? Increasingly during the 1850S, the need for popular education was emphasized by the men who formed the Republican party.6 This ideological boost for education was fortuitously coupled with a popular interest in American history during this period. The deaths of the last of the revolutionary-era heroes during the previous decade, such as John Quincy Adams in 1848...