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AMERICAN HISTORY
Connecting with the Past | FIFTEENTH EDITION
Volume 2: from 1865
ALAN BRINKLEY
Columbia University
AMERICAN HISTORY: CONNECTING WITH THE PAST, 15E
Alan Brinkley
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights re-
served. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2012, 2009, and 2007. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill
Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOW/DOW 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4
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All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brinkley, Alan.
American history : connecting with the past / Alan Brinkley.—Fifteenth edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-07-351329-4 (alkaline paper)—ISBN 0-07-351329-6 (alkaline paper)—ISBN 978-0-07-777675-6
(alkaline paper)—ISBN 0-07-777675-5 (alkaline paper)—ISBN 978-0-07-777674-9 (alkaline paper)
1. United States—History—Textbooks. I. Title.
E178.1.B826 2014
973—dc23 2014021721
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not indicate an endorsement by
the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
www.mhhe.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University. He served
as University Provost at Columbia from 2003 to 2009. He is the author of Voices of Protest:
Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression, which won the 1983 National Book
Award; The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People; The End of Reform: New
Deal Liberalism in Recession and War; Liberalism and Its Discontents; Franklin D. Roosevelt; and
The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century. He was the chair of the board of the
National Humanities Center, the chair of the board of the Century Foundation, and a trustee
of Oxford University Press. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1998–1999,
he was the Harmsworth Professor of History at Oxford University, and in 2011–2012, the Pitt
Professor at the University of Cambridge. He won the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching
Award at Harvard, and the Great Teacher Award at Columbia. He was educated at Princeton
and Harvard.
• ix
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BRIEF CONTENTS
PREFACE xxi
15 RECONSTRUCTION AND THE NEW SOUTH 399
16 THE CONQUEST OF THE FAR WEST 430
17 INDUSTRIAL SUPREMACY 458
18 THE AGE OF THE CITY 486
19 FROM CRISIS TO EMPIRE 514
20 THE PROGRESSIVES 551
21 AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR 583
22 THE “NEW ERA” 614
23 THE GREAT DEPRESSION 639
24 THE NEW DEAL 661
25 THE GLOBAL CRISIS, 1921–1941 686
26 AMERICA IN A WORLD AT WAR 704
27 THE COLD WAR 732
28 THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY 753
29 CIVIL RIGHTS, VIETNAM, AND THE ORDEAL OF LIBERALISM 781
30 THE CRISIS OF AUTHORITY 807
31 FROM THE “AGE OF LIMITS” TO THE AGE OF REAGAN 837
32 THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION 856
APPENDIXES A-1
CREDITS C-1
INDEX I-1
• xi
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
THE CONQUEST OF
PREFACE xxi
16 THE FAR WEST 430
RECONSTRUCTION AND
15 THE NEW SOUTH 399 SETTING THE STAGE 431
THE SOCIETIES OF THE
SETTING THE STAGE 400 FAR WEST 431
THE PROBLEMS OF The Western Tribes 431
PEACEMAKING 400 Hispanic New Mexico 433
The Aftermath of War and Hispanic California and
Emancipation 400 Texas 434
Competing Notions of The Chinese Migration 434
Freedom 401 Anti-Chinese Sentiments 436
Issues of Reconstruction 402 Migration from the East 437
Plans for Reconstruction 403 THE CHANGING WESTERN ECONOMY 438
The Death of Lincoln 403 Labor in the West 439
Johnson and “Restoration” 404 The Arrival of the Miners 439
RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION 404 The Cattle Kingdom 441
The Black Codes 405 THE ROMANCE OF THE WEST 443
The Fourteenth Amendment 405 The Western Landscape 443
The Congressional Plan 405 The Cowboy Culture 443
The Impeachment of the President 407 The Idea of the Frontier 443
THE SOUTH IN RECONSTRUCTION 407 Frederick Jackson Turner 445
The Reconstruction Governments 407 The Loss of Utopia 445
Education 408 THE DISPERSAL OF THE TRIBES 447
Landownership and Tenancy 409 White Tribal Policies 447
The Crop-Lien System 410 The Indian Wars 449
The African American Family in Freedom 412 The Dawes Act 452
THE GRANT ADMINISTRATION 412 THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE WESTERN FARMER 453
The Soldier President 412 Farming on the Plains 453
The Grant Scandals 412 Commercial Agriculture 455
The Greenback Question 413 The Farmers’ Grievances 455
Republican Diplomacy 413 The Agrarian Malaise 455
THE ABANDONMENT OF Patterns of Popular Culture
RECONSTRUCTION 414 The Wild West Show 444
The Southern States “Redeemed” 414
Debating the Past
The Ku Klux Klan Acts 414
Waning Northern Commitment 414 The “Frontier” and the West 446
The Compromise of 1877 415 END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 456
The Legacies of Reconstruction 417
INDUSTRIAL
THE NEW SOUTH 418
The “Redeemers” 418
Industrialization and the “New South” 419
17 SUPREMACY 458
Tenants and Sharecroppers 420
African Americans and the New South 421 SETTING THE STAGE 459
The Birth of Jim Crow 422 SOURCES OF INDUSTRIAL
GROWTH 459
Debating the Past Industrial Technologies 459
Reconstruction 416 The Airplane and the Automobile 461
Patterns of Popular Culture Research and Development 462
The Minstrel Show 420 The Science of Production 462
Railroad Expansion 463
Consider the Source The Corporation 464
Remembering Black History 426 Consolidating Corporate America 465
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 428 The Trust and the Holding
Company 466
• xiii
xiv • CONTENTS
CAPITALISM AND ITS CRITICS 467 Spectator Sports 503
The “Self-Made Man” 467 Music and Theater 506
Survival of the Fittest 471 The Movies 507
The Gospel of Wealth 471 Working-Class Leisure 507
Alternative Visions 472 The Fourth of July 507
The Problems of Monopoly 473 Mass Communications 508
INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN THE NEW ECONOMY 475 HIGH CULTURE IN THE AGE OF THE CITY 508
The Immigrant Workforce 476 The Literature of Urban America 508
Wages and Working Conditions 476 Art in the Age of the City 509
Women and Children at Work 477 The Impact of Darwinism 509
The Struggle to Unionize 478 Toward Universal Schooling 510
The Great Railroad Strike 479 Education for Women 511
The Knights of Labor 480 America in the World
The AFL 480
Global Migrations 490
The Homestead Strike 481
The Pullman Strike 482 Patterns of Popular Culture
Sources of Labor Weakness 483 Coney Island 504
Consider the Source END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 512•
Philanthropy 468
Patterns of Popular Culture
FROM CRISIS TO EMPIRE
The Novels of Horatio Alger 472
Patterns of Popular Culture 19 514
The Novels of Louisa May Alcott 474
SETTING THE STAGE 515
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 483 THE POLITICS OF EQUILIBRIUM 515
The National Government 516
Presidents and Patronage 516
THE AGE OF THE CITY Cleveland, Harrison, and the
18 486
Tariff 517
New Public Issues 517
SETTING THE STAGE 487
THE AGRARIAN REVOLT 520
THE URBANIZATION OF
The Grangers 520
AMERICA 487
The Farmers’ Alliances 521
The Lure of the City 487
The Populist Constituency 523
Migrations 488
Populist Ideas 523
The Ethnic City 490
Assimilation 491 THE CRISIS OF THE 1890S 524
Exclusion 492 The Panic of 1893 524
The Silver Question 525
THE URBAN LANDSCAPE 494
The Creation of Public Space 494 “A CROSS OF GOLD” 527
Housing the Well-to-Do 495 The Emergence of Bryan 528
Housing Workers and the Poor 495 The Conservative Victory 529
Urban Transportation 496 McKinley and Recovery 530
The “Skyscraper” 497
STIRRINGS OF IMPERIALISM 531
STRAINS OF URBAN LIFE 497 The New Manifest Destiny 532
Fire and Disease 497 Hemispheric Hegemony 533
Environmental Degradation 498 Hawaii and Samoa 534
Urban Poverty 498
Crime and Violence 499 WAR WITH SPAIN 538
The Machine and the Boss 499 Controversy over Cuba 538
“A Splendid Little War” 539
THE RISE OF MASS CONSUMPTION 500 Seizing the Philippines 539
Patterns of Income and Consumption 500 The Battle for Cuba 542
Chain Stores and Mail-Order Houses 501 Puerto Rico and the United States 543
Department Stores 501 The Debate over the Philippines 543
Women as Consumers 502
THE REPUBLIC AS EMPIRE 545
LEISURE IN THE CONSUMER SOCIETY 502 Governing the Colonies 545
Redefining Leisure 502 The Philippine War 545
CONTENTS • xv
The Open Door 547 Roosevelt and Preservation 575
A Modern Military System 548 The Hetch Hetchy Controversy 575
Patterns of Popular Culture The Panic of 1907 576
The Chautauquas 524 THE TROUBLED SUCCESSION 577
Debating the Past Taft and the Progressives 577
The Return of Roosevelt 578
Populism 528
Spreading Insurgency 578
America in the World Roosevelt versus Taft 578
Imperialism 534
WOODROW WILSON AND THE NEW FREEDOM 579
Patterns of Popular Culture Woodrow Wilson 579
Yellow Journalism 536 The Scholar as President 579
Consider the Source Retreat and Advance 580
Memorializing National History 540 Debating the Past
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 549 Progressivism 556
America in the World
Social Democracy 562
THE PROGRESSIVES
20 551 Consider the Source
Dedicated to Conserving America 572
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 581
SETTING THE STAGE 552
THE PROGRESSIVE IMPULSE 552
Varieties of Progressivism 552
The Muckrakers 553
AMERICA AND THE
The Social Gospel 553
The Settlement House 21 GREAT WAR 583
Movement 553
The Allure of Expertise 554 SETTING THE STAGE 584
The Professions 555 THE “BIG STICK”: AMERICA
Women and the Professions 555 AND THE WORLD,
1901–1917 584
WOMEN AND REFORM 556
Roosevelt and
The “New Woman” 556
“Civilization” 584
The Clubwomen 557
Protecting the “Open Door”
Woman Suffrage 559
in Asia 584
THE ASSAULT ON THE PARTIES 560 The Iron-Fisted Neighbor 585
Early Attacks 560 The Panama Canal 586
Municipal Reform 561 Taft and “Dollar Diplomacy” 587
New Forms of Governance 561 Diplomacy and Morality 587
Statehouse Progressivism 562
THE ROAD TO WAR 589
Parties and Interest Groups 563
The Collapse of the European Peace 589
SOURCES OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM 564 Wilson’s Neutrality 589
Labor, the Machine, and Reform 564 Preparedness versus Pacifism 590
Western Progressives 565 A War for Democracy 590
African Americans and Reform 565
“WAR WITHOUT STINT” 591
CRUSADE FOR SOCIAL ORDER AND REFORM 566 Entering the War 591
The Temperance Crusade 567 The American Expeditionary Force 592
Immigration Restriction 568 The Military Struggle 593
The New Technology of Warfare 594
CHALLENGING THE CAPITALIST ORDER 568
The Dream of Socialism 568 THE WAR AND AMERICAN SOCIETY 596
Decentralization and Regulation 570 Organizing the Economy for War 596
Labor and the War 596
THEODORE ROOSEVELT AND THE MODERN Economic and Social Results of the War 597
PRESIDENCY 570
The Accidental President 571 THE FUTILE SEARCH FOR SOCIAL UNITY 599
Government, Capital, and Labor 571 The Peace Movement 599
The “Square Deal” 574 Selling the War and Suppressing
Roosevelt and Conservation 574 Dissent 599
xvi • CONTENTS
THE SEARCH FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER 603 Dance Halls 628
The Fourteen Points 603 END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 637
Early Obstacles 603
The Paris Peace Conference 604
The Ratification Battle 605
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Wilson’s Ordeal 605
A SOCIETY IN TURMOIL 606
23 639
Industry and Labor 606 SETTING THE STAGE 640
The Demands of African Americans 607 THE COMING OF THE GREAT
The Red Scare 609 DEPRESSION 640
Refuting the Red Scare 611 The Great Crash 640
The Retreat from Idealism 611 Causes of the Depression 641
Consider the Source Progress of the Depression 643
Race, Gender, and Military Service 600 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN HARD
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 612 TIMES 643
Unemployment and Relief 644
African Americans and the
Depression 645
THE “NEW ERA”
22 614 Mexican Americans in Depression America 646
Asian Americans in Hard Times 648
Women and the Workplace in the Great
SETTING THE STAGE 615 Depression 648
THE NEW ECONOMY 615 Depression Families 649
Technology and Economic
Growth 615 THE DEPRESSION AND AMERICAN CULTURE 649
Economic Organization 616 Depression Values 649
Labor in the New Era 617 Artists and Intellectuals in the Great Depression 650
Women and Minorities in the Radio 650
Workforce 617 Movies in the New Era 651
The “American Plan” 621 Popular Literature and Journalism 653
Agricultural Technology and the The Popular Front and the Left 654
Plight of the Farmer 621
THE UNHAPPY PRESIDENCY OF
THE NEW CULTURE 622 HERBERT HOOVER 655
Consumerism 622 The Hoover Program 656
Advertising 622 Popular Protest 657
The Movies and Broadcasting 623 The Election of 1932 658
Modernist Religion 624 The “Interregnum” 658
Professional Women 624 Debating the Past
Changing Ideas of Motherhood 624
Causes of the Great Depression 642
The “Flapper”: Image and Reality 625
Pressing for Women’s Rights 626 America in the World
Education and Youth 627 The Global Depression 644
The Disenchanted 627 Patterns of Popular Culture
The Harlem Renaissance 630
The Films of Frank Capra 652
A CONFLICT OF CULTURES 631 END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 659
Prohibition 631
Nativism and the Klan 631
Religious Fundamentalism 634
THE NEW DEAL
The Democrats’ Ordeal 635
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT 635
24 661
Harding and Coolidge 635 SETTING THE STAGE 662
Government and Business 637 LAUNCHING THE NEW DEAL 662
Consider the Source Restoring Confidence 662
Communications Technology 618 Agricultural Adjustment 663
Industrial Recovery 663
America in the World
Regional Planning 667
The Cinema 626 Currency, Banks, and the Stock Market 668
Patterns of Popular Culture The Growth of Federal Relief 668
CONTENTS • xvii
THE NEW DEAL IN TRANSITION 669 Debating the Past
Critics of the New Deal 669 The Question of Pearl Harbor 700
The “Second New Deal” 670
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 702
Labor Militancy 671
Organizing Battles 671
Social Security 672
AMERICA IN A WORLD
New Directions in Relief 673
The 1936 “Referendum” 673 26 AT WAR 704
THE NEW DEAL IN DISARRAY 675
The Court Fight 675 SETTING THE STAGE 705
Retrenchment and Recession 676 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 705
Containing the Japanese 705
LIMITS AND LEGACIES OF THE NEW DEAL 678
Holding Off the Germans 706
The Idea of the “Broker State” 679
America and the Holocaust 708
African Americans and the New Deal 679
The New Deal and the “Indian Problem” 681 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN
Women and the New Deal 682 WARTIME 709
The New Deal in the West and the South 683 Prosperity 709
The New Deal and the National Economy 683 The War and the West 712
The New Deal and American Politics 684 Labor and the War 712
Consider the Source Stabilizing the Boom 712
Mobilizing Production 713
Banking Crises 664
Wartime Science and Technology 713
Patterns of Popular Culture African Americans and the War 715
The Golden Age of Comic Books 676 Native Americans and the War 716
Debating the Past Mexican American War Workers 716
Women and Children at War 716
The New Deal 680
Wartime Life and Culture 718
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 684 The Internment of Japanese Americans 720
Chinese Americans and the War 721
The Retreat from Reform 721
THE DEFEAT OF THE AXIS 722
THE GLOBAL CRISIS,
25 1921–1941 686
The Liberation of France 722
The Pacific Offensive 724
The Manhattan Project 726
SETTING THE STAGE 687 Atomic Warfare 727
THE DIPLOMACY OF THE NEW Consider the Source
ERA 687
The Face of the Enemy 710
Replacing the League 687
Debts and Diplomacy 688 Patterns of Popular Culture
Hoover and the World Crisis 689 Life: The Great Magazine 718
ISOLATIONISM AND Debating the Past
INTERNATIONALISM 690 The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb 728
Depression Diplomacy 691 END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 730
America and the Soviet Union 691
The Good Neighbor Policy 691
The Rise of Isolationism 692
THE COLD WAR
The Failure of Munich 694
FROM NEUTRALITY TO
27 732
INTERVENTION 695
SETTING THE STAGE 733
Neutrality Tested 695
ORIGINS OF THE COLD
The Third-Term Campaign 698
WAR 733
Neutrality Abandoned 699
Sources of Soviet-American
The Road to Pearl Harbor 699
Tension 733
America in the World Wartime Diplomacy 734
The Sino-Japanese War, 1931–1941 692 Yalta 734
Patterns of Popular Culture THE COLLAPSE OF THE PEACE 735
Orson Welles and the “War of the Worlds” 696 The Failure of Potsdam 735
xviii • CONTENTS
The China Problem 735 Travel, Outdoor Recreation, and
The Containment Doctrine 736 Environmentalism 765
The Marshall Plan 737 Organized Society and Its Detractors 766
Mobilization at Home 738 The Beats and the Restless Culture of Youth 767
The Road to NATO 739 Rock ’n’ Roll 768
Reevaluating Cold War Policy 740
THE “OTHER AMERICA” 770
The Conservative Opposition to Containment 740
On the Margins of the Affluent Society 770
AMERICAN SOCIETY AND POLITICS Rural Poverty 770
AFTER THE WAR 741 The Inner Cities 771
The Problems of Reconversion 741
THE RISE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT 772
The Fair Deal Rejected 742
The Brown Decision and “Massive Resistance” 772
The Election of 1948 742
The Expanding Movement 773
The Fair Deal Revived 743
Causes of the Civil Rights Movement 773
The Nuclear Age 744
EISENHOWER REPUBLICANISM 774
THE KOREAN WAR 745
“What Was Good for . . . General Motors” 774
The Divided Peninsula 745
The Survival of the Welfare State 774
From Invasion to Stalemate 745
The Decline of McCarthyism 775
Limited Mobilization 746
EISENHOWER, DULLES, AND
THE CRUSADE AGAINST SUBVERSION 747
THE COLD WAR 775
HUAC and Alger Hiss 747
Dulles and “Massive Retaliation” 775
The Federal Loyalty Program and the Rosenberg
France, America, and Vietnam 776
Case 748
Cold War Crises 776
McCarthyism 749
Europe and the Soviet Union 778
The Republican Revival 749
The U-2 Crisis 778
Debating the Past
Patterns of Popular Culture
Origins of the Cold War 736
On the Road 756
Debating the Past
Patterns of Popular Culture
“McCarthyism” 750
Lucy and Desi 768
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 750
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 779
THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY CIVIL RIGHTS, VIETNAM,
28 753
29 AND THE ORDEAL OF
SETTING THE STAGE 754 LIBERALISM 781
“THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE” 754
Sources of Economic SETTING THE STAGE 782
Growth 754 EXPANDING THE LIBERAL
The Rise of the Modern STATE 782
West 755 John Kennedy 782
The New Economics 755 Lyndon Johnson 783
Capital and Labor 756 The Assault on Poverty 784
Cities, Schools, and
THE EXPLOSION OF SCIENCE Immigration 784
AND TECHNOLOGY 758 Legacies of the Great Society 785
Medical Breakthroughs 758
Pesticides 759 THE BATTLE FOR RACIAL
Postwar Electronic Research 759 EQUALITY 786
Postwar Computer Technology 760 Expanding Protests 786
Bombs, Rockets, and Missiles 760 A National Commitment 787
The Space Program 761 The Battle for Voting Rights 787
The Changing Movement 788
PEOPLE OF PLENTY 762 Urban Violence 789
The Consumer Culture 762 Black Power 790
The Landscape and the Automobile 763 Malcolm X 791
The Suburban Nation 763
The Suburban Family 764 “FLEXIBLE RESPONSE” AND THE COLD WAR 792
The Birth of Television 764 Diversifying Foreign Policy 792
CONTENTS • xix
Confrontations with the Soviet Union 793 NIXON, KISSINGER, AND THE WORLD 827
Johnson and the World 793 China and the Soviet Union 827
The Problems of Multipolarity 827
THE AGONY OF VIETNAM 793
The First Indochina War 794 POLITICS AND ECONOMICS UNDER NIXON 828
Geneva and the Two Vietnams 795 Domestic Initiatives 828
America and Diem 795 From the Warren Court to the Nixon
From Aid to Intervention 796 Court 828
The Quagmire 798 The Election of 1972 829
The War at Home 799 The Troubled Economy 830
Inequality 832
THE TRAUMAS OF 1968 801
The Nixon Response 832
The Tet Offensive 801
The Political Challenge 802 THE WATERGATE CRISIS 832
The King and Kennedy Assassinations 803 The Scandals 832
The Conservative Response 804 The Fall of Richard Nixon 833
Debating the Past Patterns of Popular Culture
The Civil Rights Movement 788 Rock Music in the Sixties 810
Debating the Past America in the World
The Vietnam Commitment 794 The End of Colonialism 824
Patterns of Popular Culture Debating the Past
The Folk-Music Revival 798 Watergate 830
America in the World END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 834
1968 802
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 805
FROM THE “AGE OF LIMITS”
31 TO THE AGE OF REAGAN 838
THE CRISIS OF
30 AUTHORITY ••• SETTING THE STAGE 838
POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY AFTER
WATERGATE 838
SETTING THE STAGE 808
The Ford Custodianship 838
THE YOUTH CULTURE 808
The Trials of Jimmy Carter 839
The New Left 808
Human Rights and National
The Counterculture 811
Interests 840
THE MOBILIZATION OF The Year of the Hostages 840
MINORITIES 813
THE RISE OF THE NEW AMERICAN
Seeds of Indian Militancy 813
RIGHT 841
The Indian Civil Rights
The Sunbelt and Its Politics 842
Movement 815
The Politics of Religion 842
Latino Activism 816
The “New Right” 844
Gay Liberation 817
The Tax Revolt 845
THE NEW FEMINISM 818 The Campaign of 1980 845
The Rebirth 819
THE “REAGAN REVOLUTION” 846
Women’s Liberation 819
The Reagan Coalition 846
Expanding Achievements 820
Reagan in the White House 846
The Abortion Controversy 821
“Supply-Side” Economics 846
ENVIRONMENTALISM IN A TURBULENT SOCIETY 821 The Fiscal Crisis 847
The New Science of Ecology 821 Reagan and the World 848
Environmental Advocacy 822 The Election of 1984 849
Environmental Degradation 822
AMERICA AND THE WANING OF
Earth Day and Beyond 823
THE COLD WAR 850
NIXON, KISSINGER, AND THE WAR 824 The Fall of the Soviet Union 850
Vietnamization 824 Reagan and Gorbachev 850
Escalation 825 The Fading of the Reagan Revolution 851
“Peace with Honor” 826 The Election of 1988 851
Defeat in Indochina 826 The First Bush Presidency 851
xx • CONTENTS
The First Gulf War 852 A CHANGING SOCIETY 863
The Election of 1992 853 A Shifting Population 863
Patterns of Popular Culture African Americans in the Post–Civil Rights Era 865
Modern Plagues: Drugs and AIDS 866
The Mall 842
END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 854 A CONTESTED CULTURE 866
Battles over Feminism and Abortion 866
The Growth of Environmentalism 867
THE AGE OF THE PERILS OF GLOBALIZATION 867
32 GLOBALIZATION 856
Opposing the “New World Order” 868
Defending Orthodoxy 870
The Rise of Terrorism 870
SETTING THE STAGE 857 The War on Terrorism 872
A RESURGENCE OF The Iraq War 872
PARTISANSHIP 857
Launching the Clinton TURBULENT POLITICS 875
Presidency 857 The Unraveling of the Bush Presidency 876
The Republican The Election of 2008 and the Financial Crisis 876
Resurgence 858 The Obama Presidency 877
The Election of 1996 858 Patterns of Popular Culture
Clinton Triumphant and Embattled 858 Rap 868
The Election of 2000 859
The Second Bush Presidency 860 Debating the Past
The Election of 2004 860 Women’s History 870
THE ECONOMIC BOOM 861 America in the World
From “Stagflation” to Growth 861 The Global Environmental Movement 874
The Two-Tiered Economy 862 END-OF-CHAPTER REVIEW 880
Globalization 862
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE APPENDIXES A-1
NEW ECONOMY 862
The Digital Revolution 862 CREDITS C-1
The Internet 863
Breakthroughs in Genetics 863 INDEX I-1
PREFACE
• Smartbook®—an online version of this book that adapts
WHY do so many people take an interest in history?
It is, I think, because we know that we are
the products of the past—that everything we know, everything
to each student’s reading experience by offering
self-quizzing and highlighting material that the student
we see, and everything we imagine is rooted in our history. It is struggling with.
is not surprising that there have been historians throughout • Connect History®—homework and quizzing exercises in-
almost all of recorded time. It is only natural that we are inter- cluding map understanding, primary source analysis, im-
ested in what the past was like. Whether we study academic age exploration, key terms, and review and writing
history or not, we all are connected to the past. questions.
Americans have always had a love of their own history. It is • Insight®—a first-of-its-kind analytics tool for Connect as-
a daunting task to attempt to convey the long and remarkable signments that provides instructors with vital informa-
story of America in a single book, but that is what this volume tion about how students are performing and which
attempts to do. The new subtitle of this book, “Connecting assignments are the most effective.
with the Past,” describes this edition’s focus on encouraging • Interactive maps—more than thirty maps in the ebook
readers to be aware of the ways in which our everyday experi- and Connect can be manipulated by students to encour-
ences are rooted in our history. age better geographical understanding.
Like any history, this book is a product of its time and reflects • Critical Missions®—an activity that immerses students in
the views of the past that historians of recent generations have pivotal moments in history. As students study primary
developed. A comparable book published decades from now will sources and maps, they advise a key historical figure on
likely seem as different from this one as this book appears differ- an issue of vital importance—for example, should
ent from histories written a generation or more ago. The writing President Truman drop the atomic bomb on Japan?
of history changes constantly—not, of course, because the past • A Primary Source Primer—a video exercise with
changes, but because of shifts in the way historians, and the pub- multiple-choice questions teaches students the impor-
lics they serve, ask and answer questions about the past. tance of primary sources and how to analyze them. This
There are now, as there have always been, critics of changes online “Introduction to Primary Sources” is designed for
in historical understanding. Many people argue that history is use at the beginning of the course, to save valuable class
a collection of facts and should not be subject to “interpreta- time.
tion” or “revision.” But historians insist that history is not and
In addition to content and scholarship updates throughout,
cannot be simply a collection of facts. They are only the begin-
we have added 4 new “Consider the Source” boxed features
ning of historical understanding. It is up to the writers and
that explore the topics of family time; wartime oratory; black
readers of history to try to interpret the evidence before them;
history; and race, gender, and military service. Our concluding
and in doing so, they will inevitably bring to the task their
chapter, “The Age of Globalization,” now brings American
own questions, concerns, and experiences.
History up-to-date through the summer of 2014 and includes
Our history requires us to examine the experience of the
coverage of the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of the Tea Party,
many different peoples and ideas that have shaped American
the 2012 election, the Affordable Care Act, and the ongoing
society. But it also requires us to understand that the United
federal gridlock.
States is a nation whose people share many things: a common
I am grateful to many people for their help on this book—
political system, a connection to an integrated national (and
especially the people at McGraw-Hill who have supported and
now international) economy, and a familiarity with a shared
sustained it so well for many years. I am grateful to Laura Wilk,
and enormously powerful mass culture. To understand the
Rhona Robbin, Art Pomponio, April Cole, Stacy Ruel, Emily
American past, it is necessary to understand both the forces
Kline, and Carrie Burger. I am grateful, too, to Deborah Bull for
that divide Americans and the forces that draw them together.
her help with photographs. I also appreciate the many sugges-
It is not only the writing of history that changes with time—
tions I have received from students over the last several years,
the tools and technologies through which information is deliv-
as well as the reviews provided by a group of talented scholars
ered change as well. Created as an integral part of the content
and teachers.
of this fifteenth edition are an array of valuable learning re-
Alan Brinkley
sources that will aid instructors in teaching and students in
Columbia University
learning about American history. These resources include:
New York, NY
• xxi
A GUIDED TOUR OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
AMERICAN HISTORY CONNECTS
STUDENTS TO THE RELEVANCE
OF HISTORY THROUGH
A SERIES OF ENGAGING
FEATURES
PaTTERNS OF POPULaR CULTURe Features
These twenty-six features bring fads, crazes,
hang-outs, hobbies, and entertainment into the
story of American history, encouraging students
to expand their definition of what constitutes
history, and to think about how we can best
understand the lived experience of past lives.
xxii •
CONSIDER THE SOURCE Features
These features guide students through careful analysis of
historical documents, both textual and visual, and prompt
them to make connections with contemporary events. New
topics in this edition include family time; wartime oratory;
black history; and race, gender, and military service.
• xxiii
AMERICa IN THE WORLD Essays
These fifteen essays focus on specific parallels
between American history and that of other
nations, and demonstrate the importance of the
many global influences on the American story.
Topics like the global industrial revolution, the
abolition of slavery, and the origins of the Cold
War provide concrete examples of the
connections between the history of the United
States and the history of other nations.
UNDERSTaND, ANaLYZE, aND
EVaLUaTE Review Questions
Appearing at the end of every
feature essay, these questions
encourage students to move beyond
memorization of facts and names to
explore the importance and
significance of the featured content.
xxiv •
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
tolling of the holy bell, were compelled to keep aloof; accordingly
Durandus mentions it as one of the effects of bell-ringing, ut
dæmones timentes[233:A] fugiant; and in the Golden Legende,
printed by Wynkyn de Worde 1498, it is observed that "the evill
spirytes that ben in the regyon of the ayre, doubte moche when
they here the bells rongen: and this is the cause why the belles ben
rongen—to the ende that the feindes and wycked spirytes shold be
abashed and flee."[233:B]
That these opinions, indeed, relative to the passing-bell,
continued to prevail, as things of general belief, during the greater
part of the seventeenth century, is evident from the works of the
pious Bishop Taylor, in which are to be found several forms of prayer
for the souls of the departing, to be offered up during the tolling of
the passing-bell. In these the violence of Hell is deprecated, and it is
petitioned, that the spirits of darkness may be driven far from the
couch of the dying sinner.[233:C]
So common, indeed, was this practice, that almost every
individual had an exclamation or form of prayer ready to be recited
on hearing the passing-bell, whence the following proverbial rhyme:
"When the Bell begins to toll
Cry, Lord have mercy on the soul."
In the Vittoria Corombona of Webster, this custom is alluded to in
a manner singularly wild and striking. Cornelia says:
"Cor. I'll give you a saying which my grand-mother
Was wont, when she heard the bell, to sing o'er
unto her lute.
Ham. Do an you will, do.
Cor. Call for the robin-red-breast, and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,
To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm,
But keep the wolf far thence: that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again."
Ancient British Drama, vol. iii. p. 41.
Even so late as the commencement of the eighteenth century, it
appears that this custom of praying during the passing-bell still
lingered in some parts of the country; for Mr. Bourne, the first
edition of whose book was published in 1725, after vindicating the
practice, adds,—"I know several religious families in this place
(Newcastle), and I hope it is so in other places too, who always
observe it, whenever the melancholy season offers; and therefore it
will at least sometimes happen, when we put up our prayers
constantly at the tolling of the bell, that we shall pray for a soul
departing. And though it be granted, that it will oftener happen
otherwise, as the regular custom is so little followed; yet that can be
no harmful praying for the dead."[234:A]
Immediately after death a ceremony commenced, the most
offensive part of which has not been laid aside for more than half a
century. This was called the Licke or Lake-wake, a term derived from
the Anglo-Saxon Lic a corpse, and Wæcce a wake or watching. It
originally consisted of a meeting of the friends and relations of the
deceased, for the purpose of watching by the body from the
moment it ceased to breathe, to its exportation to the grave; a duty
which was at first performed with solemnity and piety, accompanied
by the singing of psalms and the recitation of the virtues of the
dead. It speedily, however, degenerated into a scene of levity, of
feasting, and intoxication; to such a degree, indeed, that it was
thought necessary at a provincial synod held in London during the
reign of Edward III. to issue a canon for the restriction of the
watchers to the near relations and most intimate friends of the
deceased, and only to such of these as offered to repeat a fixed
number of psalms for the benefit of his soul.[235:A] To this regulation
little attention, we apprehend, was paid; for the Lake-wake appears
to have been observed as a meeting of revelry during the whole of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and Mr. Bourne, so late as
the year 1725, declares, that it was then "a scene of sport and
drinking and lewdness."[235:B]
In Scotland during the period of which we are treating, and even
down to the rebellion of 1745, the Lake-wake was observed with still
greater form and effect than in England, though not often with a
better moral result. Mr. Pennant describing it, when speaking of the
Highland customs, under the mistaken etymology of Late-wake,
says, that the evening after the death of any person, the relations or
friends of the deceased met at the house, attended by a bag-pipe or
fiddle; the nearest of kin, be it wife, son, or daughter, opened a
melancholy ball, dancing and greeting, i. e. crying violently at the
same time; and this continued till day-light, but with such gambols
and frolics among the younger part of the company, that the loss
which occasioned them was often more than supplied by the
consequences of that night.[235:C] Mrs. Grant, however, in her lately
published work on the Superstitions of the Highlanders, has given us
a more favourable account of this ancient custom, which she has
connected with a wild traditionary tale of much moral interest.
A peasant of Glen Banchar, a dreary and secluded recess in the
central Highlands, "was fortunate in all respects but one. He had
three very fine children, who all, in succession, died after having
been weaned, though, before, they gave every promise of health
and firmness. Both parents were much afflicted; but the father's
grief was clamorous and unmanly. They resolved that the next
should be suckled for two years, hoping, by this, to avoid the
repetition of such a misfortune. They did so; and the child, by living
longer, only took a firmer hold of their affections, and furnished
more materials for sorrowful recollection. At the close of the second
year, he followed his brothers; and there were no bounds to the
affliction of the parents.
"There are, however, in the economy of Highland life, certain
duties and courtesies which are indispensable; and for the omission
of which nothing can apologise. One of those is, to call in all their
friends, and feast them at the time of the greatest family distress.
The death of the child happened late in spring, when sheep were
abroad in the more inhabited straths; but, from the blasts in that
high and stormy region, were still confined to the cot. In a dismal
snowy evening, the man, unable to stifle his anguish, went out,
lamenting aloud, for a lamb to treat his friends with at the Late-
wake. At the door of the cot, however, he found a stranger standing
before the entrance. He was astonished, in such a night, to meet a
person so far from any frequented place. The stranger was plainly
attired; but had a countenance expressive of singular mildness and
benevolence, and, addressing him in a sweet, impressive voice,
asked him what he did there amidst the tempest. He was filled with
awe, which he could not account for, and said, that he came for a
lamb. 'What kind of lamb do you mean to take?' said the stranger.
'The very best I can find,' he replied, 'as it is to entertain my friends;
and I hope you will share of it.'—'Do your sheep make any
resistance when you take away the lamb, or any disturbance
afterwards?'—'Never,' was the answer. 'How differently am I treated!'
said the traveller. 'When I come to visit my sheepfold, I take, as I am
well entitled to do, the best lamb to myself; and my ears are filled
with the clamour of discontent by these ungrateful sheep, whom I
have fed, watched, and protected.'
"He looked up in amaze; but the vision was fled. He went
however for the lamb, and brought it home with alacrity. He did
more: It was the custom of these times—a custom, indeed, which
was not extinct till after 1745—for people to dance at Late-wakes. It
was a mournful kind of movement, but still it was dancing. The
nearest relation of the deceased often began the ceremony weeping;
but did, however, begin it, to give the example of fortitude and
resignation. This man, on other occasions, had been quite unequal
to the performance of this duty; but at this time he, immediately on
coming in, ordered music to begin, and danced the solitary measure
appropriate to such occasions. The reader must have very little
sagacity or knowledge of the purport and consequences of visions,
who requires to be told, that many sons were born, lived, and
prospered afterwards in this reformed family."[237:A]
Some vestiges of the Lake-wake still remain at this day in remote
parts of the north of England, especially at the period of laying out,
or streeking the corpse, as it is termed; and here it may be
remarked, that in the time of Shakspeare, the practice of winding
the corse, or putting on the winding-sheet, was a ceremony of a
very impressive kind, and accompanied by the solemn melody of
dirges. Some lines strikingly illustrative of this pious duty, are to be
found in the White Devil; or Vittoria Corombona of Webster,
published in 1612. Francisco, Duke of Florence, tells Flaminio,
"I found them winding of Marcello's corse;
And there is such a solemn melody,
'Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies;
Such as old grandames, watching by the dead,
Were wont to outwear the nights with; that, believe me,
I had no eyes to guide me forth the room,
They were so o'ercharged with water.——
Cornelia, the Moor, and three other ladies, discovered WINDING
Marcello's corse. A Song.
Cor. This rosemary is wither'd, pray get fresh;
I would have these herbs grow up in his grave,
When I am dead and rotten. Reach the bays,
I'll tie a garland here about his head:
'Twill keep my boy from lightning. This sheet
I have kept this twenty years, and every day
Hallow'd it with my prayers; I did not think
He should have worn it."[237:B]
Another exquisite passage of this fine old poet alludes to the
same practice—a villain of ducal rank, expiring from the effect of
poison, exclaims,
"O thou soft natural death! that art joint-twin
To sweetest slumber!—no rough-bearded comet
Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl
Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse wolf
Scents not thy carion. Pity winds thy corse,
Whilst horror waits on princes."[238:A]
After the funeral was over, it was customary, among all ranks, to
give a cold, and sometimes a very ostentatious, entertainment to the
mourners. To this usage Shakspeare refers, in the character of
Hamlet:
"Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables,"
a passage which Mr. Collins has illustrated by the following quotation
from a contemporary writer: "His corpes was with funerall pompe
conveyed to the church, and there sollemnly enterred, nothing
omitted which necessitie or custom could claime; a sermon, a
banquet, and like observations."[238:B]
The funeral feast is not yet extinct; it may occasionally be met
with in places remote from the metropolis, and more particularly in
the northern counties among some of the wealthy yeomanry. Mr.
Douce considers the practice as "certainly borrowed from the cœna
feralis of the Romans," and adds, "in the North this feast is called an
arval or arvil supper; and the loaves that are sometimes distributed
among the poor, arval-bread. Not many years since one of these
arvals was celebrated in a village in Yorkshire at a public-house, the
sign of which was the family arms of a nobleman whose motto is
Virtus post funera vivit. The undertaker, who, though a clerk, was no
scholar, requested a gentleman present to explain to him the
meaning of these Latin words, which he readily and facetiously did in
the following manner; Virtus, a parish clerk, vivit, lives well, post
funera, at an arval. The latter word is apparently derived from some
lost Teutonic term that indicated a funeral pile on which the body
was burned in times of Paganism."[239:A]
A few observations must still be added on the pleasing, though
now nearly obsolete, practice of carrying ever-greens and garlands
at funerals, and of decorating the grave with flowers. There is
something so strikingly emblematic, so delightfully soothing in these
old rites, that though the prototype be probably heathen, their
disuse is to be regretted. "The carrying of ivy, or laurel, or rosemary,
or some of those ever-greens," says Bourne, "is an emblem of the
soul's immortality. It is as much as to say, that though the body be
dead, yet the soul is ever-green and always in life: it is not like the
body, and those other greens which die and revive again at their
proper seasons, no autumn nor winter can make a change in it, but
it is unalterably the same, perpetually in life, and never dying.
"The Romans, and other heathens upon this occasion, made use
of cypress, which being once cut, will never flourish nor grow any
more, as an emblem of their dying for ever, and being no more in
life. But instead of that, the antient Christians used the things before
mentioned; they laid them under the corps in the grave, to signify,
that they who die in Christ, do not cease to live. For though, as to
the body they die to the world, yet as to their souls, they live to
God.
"And as the carrying of these ever-greens is an emblem of the
soul's immortality, so it is also of the resurrection of the body: for as
these herbs are not entirely plucked up, but only cut down, and will,
at the returning season, revive and spring up again; so the body, like
them, is but cut down for a while, and will rise and shoot up again at
the resurrection."[239:B]
The bay and rosemary were the plants usually chosen, the former
as being said to revive from the root, when apparently dead, and the
latter from its supposed virtue in strengthening the memory:
"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance."[240:A]
Shakspeare has frequently noticed these ever-greens, garlands,
and flowers, as forming a part of the tributary rites of the departed,
as elegant memorials of the dead: at the funeral of Juliet he adopts
the rosemary:—
"Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse, and as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church."[240:B]
Garlands of flowers were formerly either hung up in country-
churches, as a mark of honour and esteem, over the seats of those
who had died virgins, or were remarkable for chastity and fidelity, or
were placed in the form of crowns on the coffins of the deceased,
and buried with them, for the same purpose. Of these crowns and
garlands, which were in frequent use until the commencement of the
last century, a very curious account has been given by a writer in the
Gentleman's Magazine.
"In this nation (as well as others)," he observes, "by the
abundant zeal of our ancestors, virginity was held in great
estimation; insomuch that those which died in that state were
rewarded, at their deaths, with a garland or crown on their heads,
denoting their triumphant victory over the lusts of the flesh. Nay,
this honour was extended even to a widow that had enjoyed but one
husband (saith Weever in his Fun. Mon. p. 12.) And, in the year
1733, the present clerk of the parish church of Bromley in Kent, by
his digging a grave in that church-yard, close to the east end of the
chancel wall, dug up one of these crowns, or garlands, which is most
artificially wrought in fillagree work with gold and silver wire, in
resemblance of myrtle (with which plant the funebrial garlands of
the ancients were composed) whose leaves are fastened to hoops of
large wire of iron, now something corroded with rust, but both the
gold and silver remains to this time very little different from its
original splendor. It was also lined with cloth of silver, a piece of
which, together with part of this curious garland, I keep as a choice
relic of antiquity.
"Besides these crowns, the ancients had also their depository
garlands, the use of which were continued even till of late years,
(and perhaps are still retained in many parts of this nation, for my
own knowledge of these matters extends not above twenty or thirty
miles round London,) which garlands at the funerals of the
deceased, were carried solemnly before the corpse by two maids,
and afterward hung up in some conspicuous place within the church,
in memorial of the departed person, and were (at least all that I
have seen) made after the following manner, viz. the lower rim or
circlet, was a broad hoop of wood, whereunto was fixed, at the sides
thereof, part of two other hoops crossing each other at the top, at
right angles, which formed the upper part, being about one third
longer than the width; these hoops were wholly covered with
artificial flowers of paper, dyed horn, or silk, and more or less
beauteous, according to the skill and ingenuity of the performer. In
the vacancy of the inside, from the top, hung white paper, cut in
form of gloves, whereon was wrote the deceased's name, age, &c.
together with long slips of various coloured paper, or ribbons. These
were many times intermixed with gilded or painted empty shells of
blown eggs, as farther ornaments; or, it may be, as emblems of the
bubbles or bitterness of this life; whilst other garlands had only a
solitary hour-glass hanging therein, as a more significant symbol of
mortality.
"About forty years ago, these garlands grew much out of repute,
and were thought, by many, as very unbecoming decorations for so
sacred a place as the church; and at the reparation, or new
beautifying several churches, where I have been concerned, I was
obliged, by order of the minister and churchwardens, to take the
garlands down, and the inhabitants were strictly forbidden to hang
up any more for the future. Yet, notwithstanding, several people,
unwilling to forsake their ancient and delightful custom, continued
still the making of them, and they were carried at the funerals, as
before, to the grave, and put therein, upon the coffin, over the face
of the dead; this I have seen done in many places." Bromley in Kent.
Gentleman's Magazine for June 1747.
Shakspeare has alluded to these maiden rites in Hamlet, where
the priest, at the interment of Ophelia, says,
—— "Here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial."[242:A]
The term crants, observes Johnson, on the authority of a
correspondent, is the German word for garlands, and was probably
retained by us from the Saxons.[242:B]
The strewments mentioned in this passage refer to a pleasing
custom, which is still, we believe, preserved in Wales, of scattering
flowers over the graves of the deceased.[242:C] It is manifestly
copied from the funeral rites of the Greeks and Romans, and was
early introduced into the Christian church; for St. Jerom, in an
epistle to his friend Pammachius on the death of his wife, remarks,
"whilst other husbands strawed violets and roses, and lilies, and
purple flowers, upon the graves of their wives, and comforted
themselves with such like offices, Pammachius bedewed her ashes
and venerable bones with the balsam of alms[242:D];" and Mr. Strutt,
in his Manners and Customs of England, tells us, "that of old it was
usual to adorn the graves of the deceased with roses and other
flowers (but more especially those of lovers, round whose tombs
they have often planted rose trees): Some traces," he observes, "of
this ancient custom are yet remaining in the church-yard of Oakley,
in Surry, which is full of rose trees planted round the graves."[243:A]
Many of the dramas of our immortal bard bear testimony to his
partiality for this elegantly affectionate tribute; a practice which
there is reason to suppose was in the country at least not
uncommon in his days: thus Capulet, in Romeo and Juliet, observes,
"Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;"[243:B]
and the Queen in Hamlet is represented as performing the ceremony
at the grave of Ophelia:
"Queen. Sweets to the sweet: Farewell!
(Scattering Flowers.)
I hop'd, thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought, thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave."[243:C]
It was considered, likewise, as a duty incumbent on the survivors,
annually to plant shrubs and flowers upon, and to tend and keep
neat, the turf which covered the remains of their beloved friends; in
accordance with this usage, Mariana is drawn in Pericles decorating
the tomb of her nurse:
————— "I will rob Tellus of her weed,
To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues,
The purple violets, and marigolds,
Shall, as a chaplet, hang upon thy grave,
While summer days do last;"[243:D]
and Arviragus, in Cymbeline, pathetically exclaims,
—————— "With fairest flowers,
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shall not lack
The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath."[244:A]
The only relic which yet exists in this country of a custom so
interesting, is to be found in the practice of protecting the hallowed
mound by twigs of osier, an attention to the mansions of the dead,
which is still observable in most of the country-church-yards in the
south of England.
We have thus advanced in pursuit of our object, namely, A Survey
of Country Life during the Age of Shakspeare, as far as a sketch of
its manners and customs, resulting from a brief description of rural
characters, holidays, and festivals, wakes, fairs, weddings, and
burials, will carry us; and we shall now proceed with the picture, by
adding some account of those diversions of our ancestors which
could not with propriety find a place under any of the topics that
have been hitherto noticed; endeavouring in our progress to render
the great dramatic bard the chief illustrator of his own times.
FOOTNOTES:
[209:A] Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, p. 333.
[209:B] Mr. Strutt, in a quotation from an old MS. legend of St.
John the Baptist, preserved in Dugdale's Warwickshire, tells us,
—"In the beginning of holi churche, it was so that the pepul cam
to the chirche with candellys brinnyng, and wold wake and
comme with Light toward the chirche in their devocions, and after
they fell to lecherie and songs, daunces, harping, piping, and also
to glotony and sinne, &c."—Sports and Pastimes, p. 322.
"It appears," says Mr. Brand, "that in antient times the
parishioners brought rushes at the Feast of Dedication, wherewith
to strew the Church, and from that circumstance the Festivity
itself has obtained the name of Rush-bearing, which occurs for a
Country-Wake in a Glossary to the Lancashire dialect."—Brand ap.
Ellis, vol. i. p. 436.
[210:A] Hilman's Tusser, p. 81.
[211:A] Bourne's Antiquit. Vulg. p. 330.
[211:B] Triumph of Pleasure, p. 23.
[211:C] Chalmers's Poets, vol. iv. p. 378. Poly-Olbion, Song
xxvii.
[212:A] Hesperides, p. 300, 301.
[212:B] In Shakspeare's time the business of the milliner was
transacted by men.
[212:C] Caddisses,—a kind of narrow worsted galloon.
[212:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 345. 347, 348.
[213:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 349.
[213:B] Pomander,—a little ball of perfumes worn either in the
pocket or about the neck.
[213:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 375, 376.
[214:A] Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 435, 436. The third
edition of A Woman Killed With Kindness, was printed in 4to.
1617.
[215:A] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 279. note.
[215:B] Establishment and Expences of the Houshold of Henry
Percy, the fifth Earl of Northumberland, A. D. 1512. p. 407.
[215:C] Hilman's Tusser, p. 110.
[216:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. p. 358.
[218:A] Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. i. p. 414, 415. Edit. of
1807.
[218:B] Moryson's Itinerary, part iii. p. 151. folio. London,
1617.
[218:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. p. 189. note.
[218:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. viii. p. 189, 190.
[218:E] Bliss's edition, 1811. p. 37, 38.
[219:A] Earle's Microcosmography, p. 38.
[219:B] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 8th edit. p. 191.
[220:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 213. Act ii. sc. 2.
[221:A] "Vincent de Beauvais, a writer of the 13th century, in
his Speculum historiale, lib. ix. c. 70., has defined espousals to be
a contract of future marriage, made either by a simple promise,
by earnest or security given, by a ring, or by an oath." Douce's
Illustrations, vol. i. p. 109.
[221:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 395. Act iv. sc. 3.
[221:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 403. Act v. sc. 1.
[222:A] Douce's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 113.
[222:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 395.
[222:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vi. p. 396.
[222:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. x. p. 405. Here assur'd is
taken in the sense of affianced or contracted. If necessary, many
more instances of betrothing, and troth-plighting, might be
brought forward from our author's dramas.
[223:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 240.
[223:B] Strutt's Manners and Customs, vol. iii. p. 155.
[224:A] History of Jack of Newbury, 4to. chap. ii.
[224:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 291.
[224:C] Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, by Barry, 1611. Vide
Ancient British Drama, vol. ii.
[224:D] Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady, 1616.
[224:E] A Faire Quarrel, by Middleton and Rowley, 1617.
Besides rosemary, flowers of various kinds were frequently strewn
before the bride as she passed to church; a custom alluded to in a
well-known line of Shakspeare,
"Our Bridal Flowers serve for a buried corse:"
and more explicitly depicted in the following passage from one
of his contemporaries:—
"Adriana. Come straw apace, Lord shall I never live
To walke to Church on flowers? O 'tis fine,
To see a Bride trip it to Church so lightly,
As if her new Choppines would scorne to
bruise
A silly flower!"
Barry's Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, act v. sc. 1. 4to.
1611.
[225:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 114, 115, 116. Act iii. sc.
2.
[225:B] Finet's Philoxenis, 1656, p. 11. quoted by Mr. Reed in
his Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 115. note.
[226:A] Folio edit. p. 44. Act iv. sc. 2.
[226:B] No Wit, no Help like a Womans, 8vo. 1657. Middleton
was contemporary with Shakspeare, and commenced a dramatic
writer in 1602.
[226:C] Insatiate Countess, 4to. 1603.
[226:D] Douce's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 199.
[226:E] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 459. note, by Steevens.
[226:F] Midsummer-Night's Dream, act v. sc. 2. Vide Reed's
Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 459.
[228:A] Woorts; of this word I know not the precise meaning;
but suppose it is meant to imply plodded or stumbled on.
[229:A] Nichols's Queen Elizabeth's Progresses, vol. i.—
Laneham's Letter, p. 18, 19, 20.
[229:B] Jonson's Works, fol. edit. of 1640, vol. ii. A Tale of a
Tub, p. 72.—Much of the spirit and costume of the rural wedding
of the sixteenth century continued to survive until within these
eighty years. "I have received," says Mr. Brand, who wrote in
1776, "from those who have been present at them, the following
account of the customs used at vulgar Northern Weddings, about
half a century ago:—
"The young women in the neighbourhood, with bride-favours
(knots of ribbands) at their breasts, and nosegays in their hands,
attended the Bride on her wedding-day in the morning.—Fore-
Riders announced with shouts the arrival of the Bridegroom; after
a kind of breakfast, at which the bride-cakes were set on and the
barrels broached, they walked out towards the church.—The Bride
was led by two young men; the Bridegroom by two young
women: Pipers preceded them, while the crowd tossed up their
hats, shouted and clapped their hands. An indecent custom
prevailed after the ceremony, and that too before the altar:—
Young men strove who could first unloose, or rather pluck off the
Bride's garters: Ribbands supplied their place on this occasion;
whosoever was so fortunate as to tear them thus off from her
leggs, bore them about the church in triumph.
"It is still usual for the young men present to salute the Bride
immediately after the performing of the marriage service.
"Four, with their horses, were waiting without; they saluted the
Bride at the church gate, and immediately mounting, contended
who should first carry home the good news, and WIN what they
call the KAIL;" i. e. a smoking prize of spice-broth, which stood
ready prepared to reward the victor in this singular kind of race.
"Dinner succeeded; to that dancing and supper; after which a
posset was made, of which the Bride and Bridegroom were
always to taste first.—The men departed the room till the Bride
was undressed by her maids, and put to bed; the Bridegroom in
his turn was undressed by his men, and the ceremony concluded
with the well-known rite of throwing the stocking."—Bourne's
Antiquitates Vulg. apud Brand, p. 371, 372, 373. edit. 1810.
[230:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 197.
[230:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 203.
[230:C] Ben Jonson's Works, fol. edit. 1640. vol. ii. p. 6.
[230:D] Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 787. edit. 1808.
[231:A] Capell's Notes and Various Readings on Shakspeare,
vol. i.; and Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 198.—L'Estrange, a
nephew to Sir Roger L'Estrange, appears to have been the
compiler of these anecdotes. Of the truth of the story, however,
as far as it relates to Shakspeare and Jonson, there is reason to
entertain much doubt.
[231:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 343. Act ii. sc. 3.
[232:A] Vide Douce's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 488.; and Reed's
Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 345.
[232:B] Vide Rationale Divinorum Officiorum: the first edition
was printed in 1459.
[232:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 16.
[233:A] Durandi Rational. lib. i. c. 4.
[233:B] For an account of three editions of De Worde's Golden
Legende, see Dibdin's Typographical Antiquit. vol. ii. p. 73.
[233:C] These forms of prayer are transcribed by Bourne in his
Antiquitates Vulgares.—Vide Brand's edit. p. 10. Bishop Taylor
died in 1667.
[234:A] Bourne apud Brand, p. 9.
[235:A] Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 546.