V | The Age of Franklin
Adams, J. T. Provincial Society, 1690-1763. (Volume III of A History of American Life, ed. Fox and Schlesinger.) New York: 1927. (Contains useful "Critical Essay on Authorities" consulted, pp. 324-56, which serves as a guide for further study of many phases of the social history of the period.)
Adams, R. G. Political Ideas of the American Revolution. Durham, N. C.: 1922.
Andrews, C. M. The Colonial Background of the American Revolution. New Haven: 1924. (Stresses economic factors and the need of viewing the subject from the European angle; profitably used as companion study to Beer's British Colonial Policy.)
Baldwin, Alice M. The New England Clergy and the American Revolution. Durham, N. C.: 1928. (Prior to 1763 the clergy popularized "doctrines of natural right, the social contract, and the right of resistance" and principles of American constitutional law.)
Beard, C. A. The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. New York: 1915. (Suggestive, if other factors are not neglected. See C. H. Hull's review in American Historical Review, XXII, 401-3.)
Becker, Carl. The Declaration of Independence; A Study in the History of Political Ideas. New York: 1922. (Excellent survey of natural rights, and the extent to which this concept was influenced by Newtonianism.)
Becker, Carl. The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers. New Haven: 1932. (R. S. Crane observes, after calling attention to certain obscurities and confusions: "The description of the general temper of the 'philosophers,' the characterization of the principal eighteenth-century historians, much at least of the final chapter on the idea of progress—these can be read with general approval for their content and with a satisfaction in Becker's prose style that is unalloyed by considerations of exegesis or terminology" [Philological Quarterly, XIII, 104-6].)
Beer, George L. British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765. New York: 1933 [1907].
Bemis, S. F. The Diplomacy of the American Revolution. New York; 1935. (Brilliant exposition of French, Spanish, Austrian, and other diplomacy relative to the Revolution. Should be supplemented by Frank Monaghan's John Jay.)
Bloch, Léon. La philosophie de Newton. Paris: 1908. (A comprehensive, standard exposition.)
Bosker, Aisso. Literary Criticism in the Age of Johnson. Groningen: 1930. (Reviewed by N. Foerster in Philological Quarterly, XI, 216-7.)
Brasch, F. E. "The Royal Society of London and Its Influence upon Scientific Thought in the American Colonies," Scientific Monthly, XXXIII, 336-55, 448-69 (1931). (Useful survey.)
Brinton, Crane. A Decade of Revolutions, 1789-1799. New York: 1934. (Useful on the pattern of ideas associated with the French Revolution; has a full and up-to-date "Bibliographical Essay," pp. 293-322, with critical commentary.)
Bullock, C. J. Essays on the Monetary History of the United States. New York: 1900. (Useful bibliography, pp. 275-88.)
Burnett, E. C., ed. Letters of Members of the Continental Congress. Washington, D. C.: 1921. (Seven volumes now published include letters to 1784. Contain a mass of new material of first importance, edited with notes, cross-references, and introductions.)
Burtt, E. A. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science; A Historical and Critical Essay. New York: 1925.
Bury, J. B. The Idea of Progress. New York: 1932 (new edition). (Standard English work on the topic. See also Jules Delvaille, Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de progrès [Paris, 1910], a more encyclopedic book.)
Channing, Edward. A History of the United States. New York: 1912. (Volumes II-III.)
Clark, H. H. "Factors to be Investigated in American Literary History from 1787 to 1800," English Journal, XXIII, 481-7 (June, 1934). (Suggests the genetic interrelations of classical ideas; neoclassicism; the scientific spirit, rationalism, and deism; primitivism and the idea of progress; physical America and the frontier spirit; agrarianism and laissez faire; Federalism versus Democracy, whether Jeffersonian or French; sentimentalism and humanitarianism; Gothicism; and conflicting currents of aesthetic theory.)
Clark, H. H., ed. Poems of Freneau. New York: 1929. (F. L. Pattee says of the Introduction, "No one has ever traced out better the ramifications of French Revolution deism in America and the effects of its clash with Puritanism" [American Literature, II, 316-7]. Also see Clark's "Thomas Paine's Theories of Rhetoric," Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, XXVIII, 307-39 [1933], which discusses relationships between deism and literary theory.)
Clark, J. M., Viner, J., and others. Adam Smith, 1776-1926. Chicago: 1928. (Brilliant essays on various aspects of Smith's thought and influence. See especially Jacob Viner's "Adam Smith and Laissez-Faire," pp. 116-55, which shows the relations in Smith's mind between economics and religion, between laissez faire and "the harmonious order of nature" posited by the scientific deists.)
Crane, R. S. "Anglican Apologetics and the Idea of Progress, 1699-1745," Modern Philology, XXXI, 273-306 (Feb., 1934), 349-82 (May, 1934). (Demonstrates in masterly fashion how the idea of progress grew out of orthodox defenses of revealed religion, current in Franklin's formative years. Modifies the conventional view that the Church was hostile to the idea of progress and that it derived exclusively from the scientific spirit.)
Davidson, P. G., Jr. "Whig Propagandists of the American Revolution," American Historical Review, XXXIX, 442-53 (April, 1934). (Also see Revolutionary Propaganda in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, 1763-1776. Unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 1929.)
"Deism," in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, III, 391-7 (by Ernst Troeltsch).
De la Fontainerie, F., tr. and ed. French Liberalism and Education in the Eighteenth Century: The Writings of La Chalotais, Turgot, Diderot, and Condorcet on National Education. New York: 1932. (Convenient source book.)
Dewey, D. R. Financial History of the United States. New York: 1924 (9th ed.). (Bristles with bibliographical aids for study of eighteenth century.)
Draper, J. W. Eighteenth Century English Aesthetics: A Bibliography. Heidelberg: 1931. (Source materials, pp. 61-128, for aesthetics of literature and drama: includes in appendix, pp. 129-40, ablest secondary works to 1931. An invaluable guide. See additions by R. S. Crane, Modern Philology, XXIX, 251 ff. [1931], W. D. Templeman, ibid., XXX, 309-16, R. D. Havens, Modern Language Notes, XLVII, 118-20 [1932].)
Drennon, Herbert. "Newtonianism: Its Method, Theology, and Metaphysics," Englische Studien, LXVIII, 397-409 (1933-1934). (Other parts of Mr. Drennon's brilliant doctoral dissertation, James Thomson and Newtonianism [University of Chicago, 1928], have been published in Publications of the Modern Language Association, XLIX, 71-80, March, 1934; in Studies in Philology, XXXI, 453-71, July, 1934; and in Philological Quarterly, XIV, 70-82, Jan., 1935.)
Ducros, Louis. French Society in the Eighteenth Century. Tr. from the French by W. de Geijer; with a Foreword by J. A. Higgs-Walker. London: 1927.
Duncan, C. S. The New Science and English Literature in the Classical Period. Menasha, Wis.: 1913. (Scholarly.)
Dunning, W. A. A History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu. New York: 1905, and A History of Political Theories from Rousseau to Spencer. New York: 1920. (Standard works.)
Elton, Oliver. The Augustan Age. New York: 1899, and A Survey of English Literature, 1730-1780. 2 vols. London: 1928. (Acute on literary trends, though hardly adequate on ideas.)
Evans, Charles. American Bibliography. Chicago: 1903-1934. (Volumes I-XII, 1639-1799.)
Faÿ, Bernard. Revolution and Freemasonry, 1680-1800. Boston: 1935. (Stimulating conjectures vitiated by extravagant and undocumented conclusions.)
Faÿ, Bernard. The Revolutionary Spirit in France and America. Tr. by R. Guthrie. New York: 1927. (Especially valuable for notes on the vogue of Franklin in France. Highly important comprehensive survey of French influence in America, and the impetus our revolution gave to French liberalism.)
Fisher, S. G. The Quaker Colonies. A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware. New Haven: 1921. (Useful bibliography, pp. 231-4.)
Fiske, John. The Beginnings of New England, or the Puritan Theocracy in Its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty. Boston: 1896 [1889]. (See also Perry Miller's Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650. A Genetic Study. Cambridge, Mass.: 1933.)
Gettell, R. G. History of American Political Thought. New York: 1928. (The standard comprehensive treatment of its subject. Has good bibliographies.)
Gide, Charles, and Rist, Charles. A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day. Authorized translation from the second revised and augmented edition of 1913 under the direction of the late Professor Wm. Smart, by R. Richards. Boston: 1915. (Excellent survey of physiocracy.)
Gierke, Otto. Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 1500 to 1800. With a Lecture on The Ideas of Natural Law and Humanity, by Ernst Troeltsch. Tr. with an introduction by E. Barker. 2 vols. Cambridge, England: 1934. (A standard work, with excellent notes, especially valuable on European backgrounds.)
Gohdes, Clarence. "Ethan Allen and his Magnum Opus," Open Court, XLIII, 128-51 (March, 1929). (Suggests the eighteenth-century battle between revelation and reason, the latter as buttressed by Lockian sensationalism and Newtonian science.)
Greene, E. B. The Provincial Governor in the English Colonies of North America. Cambridge, Mass.: 1898. (Inveterate divergence between provincial governor and provincial assemblies foreshadowed the American Revolution.)
Halévy, E. The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism. Tr. by M. Morris, with a preface by A. D. Lindsay. London: 1928. (A comprehensive, authoritative work.)
Hansen, A. O. Liberalism and American Education in the Eighteenth Century. With an introduction by E. H. Reisner. New York: 1926. (A good bibliography of primary sources and a poor bibliography of secondary sources, pp. 265-96. Although this slights Franklin and deals especially with plans following Franklin's death, it surveys educational ideals with reference to the ideas of the Enlightenment, ideas latent in Franklin's writings.)
Haroutunian, Joseph. Piety versus Moralism, the Passing of the New England Theology. New York: 1932. (An important scholarly work arguing reluctantly that Puritanism declined because it was theocentric and inadequate to the social needs of the time. Has an excellent bibliography.)
Hefelbower, S. G. The Relation of John Locke to English Deism. Chicago: 1918. (The relation between Locke and the English deists is "not causal, nor do they mark different stages of the same movement"; they are "related as coordinate parts of the larger progressive movement of the age." Stresses Locke's tolerance, rationalism, and natural religion.)
Higgs, Henry. The Physiocrats. Six Lectures on the French Économistes of the Eighteenth Century. London: 1897. (Gide and Rist term this a "succinct account" of the physiocratic system.)
Hildeburn, C. R. Issues of the Pennsylvania Press. A Century of Printing, 1685-1784. 2 vols. Philadelphia: 1885-1886. (A highly useful guide to what was being read in Pennsylvania year by year.)
Horton, W. M. Theism and the Scientific Spirit. New York: 1933. (Popular accounts of "Copernican world" and "God in the Newtonian world" in chapters I-II.)
Humphrey, Edward. Nationalism and Religion in America, 1774-1789. Boston: 1924.
Jameson, J. F. The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement. Princeton, N. J.: 1926. (Brief and general, but suggestive.)
Jones, H. M. America and French Culture, 1750-1848. Chapel Hill, N. C.: 1927. (A monumental, elaborately documented comprehensive work, containing an excellent bibliography.)
Jones, H. M. "American Prose Style: 1700-1770," Huntington Library Bulletin, No. 6, 115-51 (Nov., 1934). (Shows that Puritan preachings inculcated the ideal of a simple, lucid, and dignified style.)
Kaye, F. B., ed. The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits. With a Commentary Critical, Historical, and Explanatory. 2 vols. Oxford: 1924. (The introduction is the most lucid and penetrating commentary on Mandeville in relation to the pattern of ideas of his age. See L. I. Bredvold's review in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XXIV, 586-9, Oct., 1925.)
Koch, G. A. Republican Religion: The American Revolution and the Cult of Reason. New York: 1933. ("A vast body of facts about a host of obscure figures"—reviewed by H. H. Clark in Journal of Philosophy, XXXI, 135-8. Contains an elaborate bibliography.)
Kraus, M. Intercolonial Aspects of American Culture on the Eve of the Revolution. New York: 1928. (Scholarly.)
Lecky, W. E. H. A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. 7 vols. New York: 1892-1893 (new ed.). (A standard work, containing a finely documented treatment of the political aspects of the American Revolution.)
Leonard, S. A. The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage, 1700-1800. Madison, Wis.: 1929. (Authoritative.)
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien. History of Modern Philosophy in France. Chicago: 1899.
Lincoln, C. H. The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania, 1760-1776. Philadelphia: 1901. (A highly important study showing that local sectional strife which would have eventually led to conflict synchronized with the strife between the colony and England.)
Lovejoy, A. O. "The Parallel of Deism and Classicism," Modern Philology, XXIX, 281-99 (Feb., 1932). ("A systematic statement of the rationalistic preconceptions which, when applied in matters of religion terminated in Deism, when applied in aesthetics produced Classicism. An illuminating synthesis, done throughout with characteristic finesse and discrimination" [Philological Quarterly, XII, 106, April, 1933].)
McIlwain, C. H. The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation. New York: 1923. (Offers defense of revolution on English constitutional grounds.)
Martin, Kingsley. French Liberal Thought in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of Political Ideas from Bayle to Condorcet. Boston: 1929. (Stimulating survey of ideology motivating the French revolution, "a dramatic moment when feudalism, clericalism and divine monarchy collapsed.")
Merriam, C. E. A History of American Political Theories. New York: 1924 [1903]. (Authoritative, brief treatment.)
Monaghan, Frank. John Jay, Defender of Liberty. New York: 1935. (A brilliant biography and a fully documented study of the activities and diplomacy of the Continental Congress. Supplements S. F. Bemis; see above.)
Moore, C. A. "Shaftesbury and the Ethical Poets in England, 1700-1760," Publications of the Modern Language Association, XXXI (N. S. XXIV), 264-325 (June, 1916). (Penetrating and brilliant survey of the growth of altruism, to be supplemented by R. S. Crane's studies of earlier sources.)
Morais, H. M. Deism in Eighteenth Century America. New York: 1934. (If little space is given to the implications of Deism in terms of political, economic, and literary theory, and if the leaders of deistic thought, such as Franklin, Jefferson, and Paine are too lightly dealt with, this work is "substantial, precise, well-documented, modest, cautious, and objective." Has a good bibliography. Reviewed by H. H. Clark, American Literature, VI, 467-9, Jan., 1935. See also Morais's "Deism in Revolutionary America, 1763-89," International Journal of Ethics, XLII, 434-53, July, 1932.)
Morley, John. Diderot and the Encyclopædists. 2 vols. London: 1923. (A suggestive survey, parts of which have been superseded by more recent studies.)
Mornet, Daniel. French Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Tr. by L. M. Levin. New York: 1929. (Lucid and penetrating survey; suggestive notes on the influence of speculation motivated by science.)
Mornet, Daniel. Les origines intellectuelles de la Révolution française (1715-1787). Paris: 1933. (A brilliant work, concluding that without the extraordinary diffusion of radical ideas in all classes in France, the States-General in 1789 would not have adopted revolutionary measures. See C. Brinton's review, American Historical Review, XXXIX, 726-7, 1934.)
Morse, W. N. "Lectures on Electricity in Colonial Times," New England Quarterly, VII, 364-74 (June, 1934). (Presents fourteen items on the vogue of electrical experiments, 1747-1765.)
Mott, F. L. A History of American Magazines, 1741-1850. New York: 1930.
Mullett, C. F. Fundamental Law and the American Revolution, 1760-1776. New York: 1933. (A highly important scholarly study, with excellent bibliography of relevant investigations of recent date. Supplements B. F. Wright.)
Ornstein, Martha. The Rôle of Scientific Societies in the Seventeenth Century. New York: 1913. Reprinted, University of Chicago Press: 1928. (Shows their radical influence. See suggestive reviews in American Historical Review, XXXIV, 386-7, 1929; and Times Literary Supplement [London], 679, Sept. 27, 1928.)
Osgood, H. L. The American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century. 4 vols. New York: 1924-1925. (Standard work on political aspects.)
Perkins, J. B. France in the American Revolution. Boston: 1911. (Includes able survey of Franklin's efforts in behalf of colonies.)
Richardson, L. N. A History of Early American Magazines, 1741-1789. New York: 1931. (An encyclopedic survey indispensable to all students of the period. Enormously documented.)
Robertson, J. M. A Short History of Free Thought, Ancient and Modern. 2 vols. London: 1915. (Third edition, revised and expanded. An important survey, if somewhat militantly partisan.)
Roustan, Marius. The Pioneers of the French Revolution. Tr. by F. Whyte, with an Introduction by H. J. Laski. Boston: 1926. (Thesis: "The spirit of the philosophes was the spirit of the Revolution." Highly readable, but inferior to parallel studies by Martin and Mornet in incisive analysis of patterns of ideas. Stresses picturesque social aspects.)
Schapiro, J. S. Condorcet and the Rise of Liberalism in France. New York: 1934. (Condorcet is the "almost perfect expression of the pioneer liberalism of the period"; he is viewed as the "last of the encyclopedists and the most universal of all." A lucid scholarly study, although hardly superseding Alengry's Condorcet.)
Schlesinger, A. M. "The American Revolution," in New Viewpoints in American History. New York: 1922, pp. 160-83. (A brief but excellent interpretation, stressing economic factors, and presenting a useful "Bibliographical Note," pp. 181-3, including references to studies of political and religious factors. See also studies of the latter by R. G. Adams, Alice Baldwin, Carl Becker, B. F. Wright, C. F. Mullett, C. H. Van Tyne, and Edward Humphrey.)
Schneider, H. W. The Puritan Mind. New York: 1930. (An acute scholarly study, with excellent bibliography. The stress on ideas supplements and balances Parrington's tendency to dismiss ideas as by-products of economic factors.)
Smith, T. V. The American Philosophy of Equality. Chicago: 1927. (Chapter I includes discussion of "natural rights," with recognition of the influence of European theorists.)
Smyth, A. H. The Philadelphia Magazines and Their Contributors, 1741-1850. Philadelphia: 1892. (Brief descriptive account, mostly superseded by the relevant sections in F. L. Mott's and L. N. Richardson's histories.)
Stephen, Leslie. A History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 2 vols. London: 1902 (3rd ed.). (As J. L. Laski observes, it is "almost insolent to praise such work." In certain aspects, however, it has been superseded by studies by such men as R. S. Crane, A. O. Lovejoy, H. M. Jones, etc.)
Stimson, Dorothy. The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe. Hanover, N. H.: 1917.
Taylor, O. H. "Economics and the Idea of Natural Law," Quarterly Journal of Economics, XLIV, 1-39 (Nov., 1929). ("The evolution of the idea of 'law' in economics" paralleling "its evolution in the natural sciences" led to belief in an economic mechanism which "was regarded as a wise device of the Creator for causing individuals, while pursuing only their own interests, to promote the prosperity of society, and for causing the right adjustment to one another of supplies, demands, prices, and incomes, to take place automatically, in consequence of the free action of all individuals." The author suggests that there is evident an incongruous dichotomy between the mechanistic idea of the physiocrats and their assumption that enlightened men "would be able to use government as a scientific tool for carrying out purely rationalistic measures in the common interest." See also outline of his doctoral thesis on this subject. Harvard University Summaries of Theses [1928], 102-6. An authoritative study of an important subject.)
Torrey, N. L. Voltaire and the English Deists. New Haven: 1930. (Shows Voltaire's great indebtedness to Newtonianism, which he popularized in France, and to earlier deists than Bolingbroke. Authoritative.)
Turberville, A. S., ed. Johnson's England. An Account of the Life and Manners of His Age. 2 vols. Oxford University Press: 1933. (Although this collaborative work neglects political, religious, economic, and aesthetic ideas, it embodies readable and authoritative surveys of external aspects of social history, viewed from many angles. Contains useful bibliographies. See review by H. H. Clark, American Review, II, No. 4 [Feb., 1934].)
Tyler, M. C. A History of American Literature, 1607-1765 (2 vols. New York: 1878), and The Literary History of the American Revolution (2 vols. New York: 1897). (Somewhat grandiloquent but very full survey, including Loyalists. Excellent on literary aspects but partly superseded on ideas. Contains excellent bibliography of primary sources.)
Van Tyne, C. H. The Causes of the War of Independence. Boston: 1922. (Brilliant both in interpretation and style, and well balanced in considering economic, political, social, religious, and philosophic factors.)
Veitch, G. S. The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform. London: 1913. (Useful for English backgrounds.)
Weld, C. R. A History of the Royal Society with Memoirs of the Presidents. 2 vols. London: 1848.
Wendell, Barrett. Cotton Mather, the Puritan Priest. Cambridge, Mass.: 1926 [1891]. (A sympathetic study of one of Franklin's masters, based on a deep knowledge of the Puritan spirit.)
Weulersse, Georges. Le mouvement physiocratique en France (de 1756 à 1770). 2 vols. Paris: 1910. (The standard treatment.)
White, A. D. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. 2 vols. New York: 1897. (Prominent attention given to colonial eighteenth century.)
Whitney, Lois. Primitivism and the Idea of Progress in English Popular Literature of the Eighteenth Century. Baltimore: 1934. (An acute study of the history of an important idea, especially as embodied in novels. Occasionally misleading because Miss Whitney does not always pay necessary attention to the major individuals' change of attitude, to their genetic development. Contains no bibliography. See Bury, above.)
Williams, David. "The Influence of Rousseau on Political Opinion, 1760-1795," English Historical Review, XLVIII, 414-30 (1933).
Winsor, Justin, ed. Narrative and Critical History of America. 8 vols. Boston: [1884-] 1889. (Especially valuable for bibliographical notes.)
Wright, B. F. American Interpretations of Natural Law. A Study in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: 1931. (An able outline of main trends, although it neglects evidence both in eighteenth-century sermons and in legal papers of colonial attorneys. Shows strong influence of Grotius, Puffendorf, and Locke on Revolutionary theories. Should be supplemented by C. F. Mullett's parallel book. Reviewed by R. B. Morris, American Historical Review, XXXVII, 561-2, April, 1932.)
Wright, T. G. Literary Culture in Early New England, 1620-1730. New Haven: 1920. (Valuable for its check lists of colonial libraries, suggesting books current in Franklin's formative years. The best treatment of its subject although it neglects the literary and aesthetic theories of the period. To be supplemented by books by C. F. Richardson, W. F. Mitchell, and E. C. Cook.)
Further background studies may be found in The Cambridge History of English Literature, Cambridge and New York, 1912-1914, VIII-XI, and The Cambridge History of American Literature, New York, 1917, Vol. I. See also the more up-to-date bibliographies in P. Smith's A History of Modern Culture, New York, 1934, II, 647-76; R. S. Crane's A Collection of English Poems, 1660-1800, New York, 1932, pp. 1115-42; and especially O. Shepard and P. S. Wood, English Prose and Poetry, 1660-1800, Boston, 1934, pp. xxxiii-xxxviii and pp. 937-1067. For bibliographical guides, see note following, p. clxxxviii.