Almost chosen people: oblique biographies in the American grain

630 Pages·1993·1.64 MB·English

by  Michael Zuckerman

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,