Recently, historical books have been written in a distinct style: They have been telling broad and complex histories by focusing on a narrow story of a person, place, or event that serves as a representative of a larger, richer world. I think this is a great way to turn what might otherwise be a dry story into one more engaging and accessible. Dave Von Drehle’s book on the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in 1911 dealt with much more than just the factory fire; it discussed the labor and women’s rights movements, and painted a vivid picture of New York City 100 years ago. Ron Cherno’s great work, The House of Morgan (one of my top-ten favorite works of history) examined the history of the J.P. Morgan bank, and in the process offered a detailed history of American finance and the rise of its powerful banks, the Great Depression, Japanese-American relations leading up to World War II, and much more. When it works, this is a great way to tell a story, but so pervasive is this style of history that it almost comes as a relief to find a book that tries to tell the whole story of an age. Daniel Walker Howe’s What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 is such a book. As Howe candidly notes, his “book tells a story; it does not argue a thesis.” It simply tells the story of America over a thirty three year span; an audacious and ambitious book, but won that delivers.
What Hath God Wrought Walks the reader through America in the thirty three year period beginning with the waning days of The War of 1812 and ends with the close of the Mexican-American war. Howe does a fantastic job of telling a rich story of a people in a state of flux, spiritual enrichment, economic upheaval, growing confidence, and expansion. What makes this story special is that it’s as if Howe leaves no stone unturned, and then connects the events to one another in a web as complex and interwoven as the American people. For example, he discusses America’s deepening protest religious faith (and the birth of Mormon, Quaker, Shaker, and millennial beliefs), and shows how the desire to be able to read to the bible helped create a highly literate society, which in turn made for a large market for newspapers and political information, in turn enriching the democratic underpinnings of the young nation. The incredible technological advances, which allowed the American country to grow in size also brought about radical change. These developments included the railroads and canals (like the Erie), which helped bring frontier agriculture to New York City and to the world market beyond; mass printed newspapers which helped spread news of the nation, its politics, conflicts, and ideas to a wide readership. Most importantly in this time, the development of the telegraph brought down the time it took for communication to travel in a way seldom dreamt of before. The book’s title, What Hath God Wrought, is taken from the first telegraph message sent (fittingly, it was sent carrying news from the Democratic national convention in Baltimore to the White House. The phrase is also biblical in origin).
The book chronicles many of the great triumphs for the nation during this period. One such silent victory has to do with women’s education. Howe wrote:
“The United States pioneered higher education for women, and by 1880 one-third of all American students enrolled in higher education were female, a percentage without parallel elsewhere in the world. Scholars have often debated how far American history is ‘exceptional’ by comparison with the rest of the world. No better example of American exceptional-ism exists than higher education for women.”
It might be a stretch to say there were no governing themes in the book. Technological developments were at the core of much of America’s changes at the time. The communications revolution affected nearly every facet of society. Slavery was an ever present issue. It helped defined parties, southern aristocratic and plantation culture, and was the nucleus of a whole economic system (not by the way, only in the south. The cotton that was picked in the slave states made its way to New England mills where it was woven into fabrics and exported to England and elsewhere, making mill-owners rich in the process). But if there is one aspect of American society and activity that the book focuses on, it is the Presidents and great men of the Congress. The discussion of the rise and fall of the Whig party is enough to make the book worth picking up for its own sake. John Quincy Adams, the 6th president of the United States, also a former Secretary of State, and Senator, made a number of appearances throughout the book in his role as a congressman (it is hard for us to think imagine a President choosing to continue serving in elected office as a Congressman after their presidency ended, but Adams loved it- far more than he had the Presidency itself). He was in many ways the voice for the voiceless in the early 19th century. Adams introduced petitions of women, slaves, and freed blacks into Congress and forced Congress to debate, time and again, legislation designed to limit discussion of slavery issues in Congress.
It was Andrew Jackson, however, who did more to set the course of events in the pre-civil war decades. Jackson’s political life spans the lenth of the book. He was the hero of the War of 1812. Ironically, his great victory in New Orleans, the battle that made him famous and brought him to national prominence, in fact took
place after the war had officially ended. News traveled slow before the telegraph, and word of the peace treaty ending the war made its way across the Atlantic Ocean after the battle of New Orleans had been fought. It was Jackson’s fame as a war hero that propelled him to the White House, but it was his battle against the Bank of the United States that had its most enduring consequences. And has Howe points out, it is full of irony that Jackson’s picture should adorn the twenty dollar bill.The book concludes with the Mexican-American war. It is perhaps America’s more forgotten and misunderstood war; and it was the war that did more to change the geographical boundaries of the American frontier than any other. Perhaps it is our most forgotten war because it was largely a war of aggression, instigated by President Polk in his quest to realize the “manifest destiny” of a country from sea to sea. It is ironic that much of the Texan territory was occupied by illegal immigrants from the United States into Mexico. America’s actions at the time make its claims on the Mexican territories look like the spoils of war. It is hard to believe today, but in the 1840s, American armies marched from Veracruz to Mexico City, and after defeating Mexico’s armies, American soldiers raised the U.S. flag over the Zocalo, as they began occupying one of the world’s great cities of the time. But as Howe jarringly put it, “In the long run of history, however, in some respects, the seizure of [the former Mexican territories] did work as Polk expected, for ‘the general interests of mankind.’ For example, it enabled a strong stand to be taken against the aggressions of imperial Japan in the 1940s. God moves in mysterious ways, and He is certainly capable of bringing good out of evil.”
This book does not shy away from exposing the ugly aspects of American culture in the first half of the 19th century. Howe’s book offers an exacting and critical look at the American-Indian Wars, including those with the Seminoles of Florida, who resisted Andrew Jackson’s expulsion of the eastern Indians to the plain states along the Trail of Tears. And of course much of the book focuses on the expansion of slavery and the hardening of positions between slavery proponents and opponents during this time. “American history between 1815 and 1848 certainly had its dark side: poverty, demagogy, disregarded for legal restraints, the perpetuation and expansion of slavery, and the dispossession of the Native Americans, and the waging of aggressive war against Mexico...” But Howe also tells of the epic triumphs and achievements of the American people; their achievements and developments in technology, democracy, and spiritual enrichment. It is Howe’s ability to tell the story of America’s development during this period from every conceivable angle and to delve deeply into so many themes that made the antebellum Americans who they were, no doubt contributed to the author’s book being awarded the Noble Peace Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize. It is a book I will not soon forget. Now tell me your thoughts on What Hath God Wrought!
