J. Franklin Jameson, The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement, 100th Anniversary Edition with a new foreword by Michael A. Blaakman and Sarah Barringer Gordon. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2025, £15.99.
Reviewed by Jeremy Black
The appearance of this crisp volume (42 page foreword, 100 page text, plus index, all in a modest page size) provides an opportunity not only for a quick read of a good book in a field overly dominated by large ones, but also to consider the American Revolution, revolutions as a whole, American history and the nature of historiography. The Foreword provides an excellent introduction here, with an ably-footnoted guide to the career and work of Jameson (1859-1937), a historian who taught at Brown (1839-1901), headed the history department at Chicago (1901-5), and then became head of the Department of Historical Research at the Carnegie Institute (1905-28) using that position to develop the institutions and publications of historical study. He went on to be the head of the Library of Congress’ Manuscript Division, a post he held until his death. His friends included President Woodrow Wilson. Jameson’s lectures were initially given in 1895 at Barnard College, delivered largely unchanged at Princeton in 1925 and published in 1926, with a paperback edition appearing in 1926. Jameson’s work is instructive not only because of his presentation of the Revolution as essentially a social movement that was crucial in transforming American Society and therefore creating a new place, but also because of his treatment of other approaches. It is not that Jameson denies the significance of military, political and international dimensions, but rather that he sees them as aspects of a wider portrayal. Indeed, his emphasis on the social side is based on an historiographical perception that it has been underrated and not on an attempt to leave out the military, political and international. This represents an instructive way to approach what might otherwise be seen as warring alternatives. For example, with regard to geopolitics, Jameson makes much of geographical contrasts within the Thirteen Colonies: ‘…there was a marked difference between the physical geography of the northern and the southern regions of that coast…’ (p. 29) becomes the basis for a consideration of social and political consequences as part of a discussion of landownership and its democratisation as a consequence of the Revolution. There is then an assessment of the Western question in terms of land and migration. Indeed, paralleling the work of his friend Frederick Jackson Turner who had brought out a book The Frontier in American History in 1920, Jameson saw westward expansion as crucial: ‘Not less noteworthy was the influence of the western region in promoting that growth of political and social democracy which was one of the most precious legacies of the Revolutionary period’ (p. 45). The Native Americans would not have appreciated the argument but ‘a hearty belief in human equality was likely to be a part of the generous creed of the West’ (p. 46), and the Revolution’s unlocking of the frontier is presented as bringing the promise of America to fruition:
‘The process which had marked the Atlantic settlements in comparison with the countries of Europe, was likely to mark the West even more than the East, and to push forward still more the development of American democracy’ (p. 47).
There is also a presentation of independence as ‘a release from fetters’ (p. 69) in the shape of the British navigation system. Interestingly, shape is thereby given to American history, with the Civil War likewise presented as ‘sweeping away an obsolete economic and social system’ (pp. 72-3).
The last lecture turns instead to consider the cultural consequences of the war, and notably so in terms of religious status and activity. War again is presented as transformative (pp. 91-3). Alongside the very valuable Foreword, this important work helps us to consider and place present-day discussion of causes and consequences, and in the academic as well as the public spheres. It is also a pleasure to read.
