-. The Bostonians. London: John Lehmann Ltd. 1952.
"I wished to write a very American tale," James wrote in his Notebook (two years prior to the publication of the novel in 1886). He also stated, "I asked myself what was the most salient and peculiar point of our social life. The answer was: the situation of women, the decline of the sentiment of sex…."
Henry Steele Commager. The American Mind. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1950.
In the section aptly entitled "The Literature of Revolt," Commager noticed that the tradition of protest and revolt (dominant in American literature since Emerson and Thoreau) turned, at the beginning of the 20th century (that is, with the New Economics), into an almost unanimous repudiation of the economic order. "…most authors portrayed an economic system disorderly and ruthless, wasteful and inhumane, unjust alike to working men, investors, and consumers, politically corrupt and morally corrupting," (p. 247). He goes on to name William Dean Howell (with his novels), Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and others. In the same vein, Denis Brogan (The American Character), J.T. Adams (Our Business Civilization), Harold Stearns (America: A Reappraisal), Mary A. Hamilton (In America Today), André Siegfried (America Comes of Age) are also mentioned.
Howard Gardner. Frames of Mind: Theory of Multiple
Intelligences. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
Diane Ravitch. The Schools We Deserve. New York: Doubleday,1985.
Peter Cooper (1791-1883). Self-taught entrepreneur and inventor. As head of North American Telegraph Works, he made a fortune manufacturing glue and establishing iron works. In 1830, his experimental locomotive made its first 13-mile run.
The Corcoran case. The incredible secret of John Corcoran, 20/20,
ABC News, April 1, 1988. (Text by byTranscripts: Journal
Graphics, Inc. pp. 11-14.)
Noah Webster. The American Spelling Book: containing an easy
standard of pronunciation. Being the first part of a
Grammatical Institute of the English Language. Boston: Isaiah
Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1793.
William Holmes McGuffey. McGuffey's Newly Revised Eclectic First Reader: containing progressive lessons in reading and spelling (revised and improved by Wm. H. McGuffey). Cincinnati: Winthrop B. Smith, 1853. It is doubtful that all the clever remarks attributed to Yogi Berra came from him. What matters is the dry sense of humor and logical irreverence that make these remarks another form of Americana.