Week 1 Blog Post

Week 1 Blog Post Part 1


I really like McPherson and Hogue’s book Ordeal by Fire. I think it is more interesting to read than the average textbook. In class, when Prof. Morgan said their book was a synthesis instead of a textbook, that explained the difference. I like that Ordeal by Fire begins well before the Civil War starting with U.S. industrialization in order to emphasize the scope of economic differences between the North and the South by mid-century which was a major source of sectional conflict.

I was surprised by the sections “Causes of American Modernization” and “The Modernizing Ethos.” I had not read before that a labor supply below demand helped to spur technological innovation in the U.S. Of course, this was true mainly in the first half of the 19th century since immigration from the 1840’s onward provided an adundant supply of labor to the northern industrial centers and kept wages down instead of high. The authors’ assertion via Table 1.1 “The origins of 19th century American Business Executives” that the majority were of New England (Yankee) origin was enlightening. It is a type of statistic that other textbook editors might shy away from since it was specifically praising “Yankee” intelligence and ingenuity. Its discussion significantly reinforced the concept of the Calvinist work ethic that most students are aware of. Table 1.1 also glaringly highlighted the differences between North and South regarding business and innovation.

I already knew most of the information concerning the temperance and women’s rights movements from other classes although some of the information on education and newspaper circulation was new for me.

Even after carefully reading, “Political Parties and Modernization” (p. 25) as well as chapter four “Sectionalism and Succession,” I’m still a bit confused on 19th century political parties. That could probably be a course by itself. Democrats as “the party of tradition,” and Whigs as “the party of modernization” make sense. It definitely gets complicated in chapter four with the distinction between northern and southern Whigs and northern and southern Democrats. What the text makes painfully obvious is that our country was divided several decades before the Civil War broke out. Also in chapter four, I basically followed the difference between fire-eaters, Barnburners, and Free Soilers, but I would not want to have to explain it to any one without advanced notice and having written it down.

Another topic I found especially interesting (that I had not read about previously) was the British presence in Texas and Oregon and the abolitionist connection since Britain abolished slavery before the U.S. I am interested in the reasons behind Anglophobia in the U.S. and McPherson and Hogue give two on pages 60 and 62.

I saw intriguing parallels between Congressional opposition to the War of 1812 and the second Iraqi war begun by the recent Bush administration (McPherson and Hogue, p. 64). The authors state that many of the Whigs in Congress were against the War of 1812 but did not want to risk alienating their constituents by voting against it. As the Democrats did during the Iraqi war, the Whigs voted to “support the troops” with appropriations and supplies.

Written by Molly Kettler