Telegram From a Parallel Universe

Organized religion occupied an even more influential place in American culture then than it does now. Communities created public schools as much to teach literacy for Bible reading as to create an informed citizenry. Some of the colleges and universities that seem today bastions of secularism were sectarian institutions then: Presbyterian Princeton, Congregationalist Yale and Unitarian Harvard, to mention three conspicuous examples.

Yale's great professor of chemistry from 1802 to 1853, Benjamin Silliman, affirmed that science reveals "the thoughts of God." Today the proposition that the universe displays a creator's intelligent design has provoked bitter debate in the United States. Then, no one in America denied intelligent design. Even the leading critics of organized religion, the deists like Tom Paine and Robert Owen, insisted that the physical universe displayed evidence of providential design. Indeed, they contrasted the firm evidence of God's existence that nature supplied with what they considered the weak evidence of the Bible's "fables."

One of the most striking differences between our time and the early 19th century is that evangelical Christians then were generally liberal in both theology and politics. Evangelicals were the first Americans to set up the voluntary associations we consider indispensable to civil society. They organized nationwide movements not only to promote overseas missions and the distribution of Bibles, but also humanitarian causes like prison reform, insane asylums, shelters for abused women, even opposition to slavery.

Americans faced serious challenges in the years between 1815 and 1848. In 1815 the United States was what we would call a "third world" country. Most people lived on isolated farmsteads and grew some of their own food. Wives made their families' clothes. What kept lives so primitive was the absence of adequate transportation and communication. But Americans rose to the challenge with innovations. As transportation and communication improved, so did the quality of life. Farm families could send their produce to market and use the money to buy products from around the world. By 1848 the American people enjoyed a powerful and prosperous national economy. Social problems like slavery and sex discrimination proved harder to resolve than economic ones. Expulsion of Native Americans (called "Indian Removal") and aggressive war against Mexico compounded the country's shame. Though reformers and some religious leaders agitated to correct injustices, it would take a civil war to end slavery.

We ourselves inhabit another time of rapid change. As we head off into an unknown future of our own, we can not only draw lessons from the failures of the past, but inspiration from our predecessors' courage, ambition, moral principle and willingness to innovate.

Howe just won the Pulitzer Prize for his book “What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.”

© 2008