Jess McHugh believes that a thread of United States history extends through a series of best selling books. McHugh starts with The Old Farmer’s Almanac–which has been around for 228 years!–and points out how loyal readers continue to support the book over centuries.
Noah Webster dreamed of uniting his country through language so he dedicated his life to writing spellers and dictionaries that would standardize American language and help indoctrinate immigrants into the American Way.
I first read Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography in a doctoral seminar on early American Literature. Franklin, an entrepreneur, inventor, politician, and literary figure, focused his book on suggesting ways the reader could become successful. And, the massive sales and continued popularity of the book shows Franklin’s message still resonates.
The McGuffey Readers are still used by parents who homeschool their kids. Catharine Beecher published her best seller, A Treatise on Domestic Economy, in 1841. Beecher’s goal was to show American women how to run a household efficiently and effectively. Emily Post wrote Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home basically updated Beecher’s book and added addition advice on how women should behave. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnage is still in print and preaching the message of getting people to like you.
I learned how to cook by using my Mom’s Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book. I started with French Toast and moved on to desserts. We still have an updated copy in our Kitchen Library. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) was a book I didn’t read (I preferred The Joy of Sex), but I did see the Woody Allen movie of the same title.
Viewing the development of our country through books that offer advice and norms of behavior produces an very different version of U. S. history. If you’re looking for an off-beat history book, Americanon is well worth a look! How many of these books are you familiar with? GRADE: A
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The Old Farmer’s Almanac (1792-) 11
Chapter 2 Webster’s Speller and Dictionary (1783/1828) 43
Chapter 3 Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (1793) 84
Chapter 4 The McGuffey Readers (1836-1837) 114
Chapter 5 A Handbook to American Womanhood 145
Chapter 6 Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home (1922) 178
Chapter 7 How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) 218
Chapter 8 Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book (1950) 252
Chapter 9 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1969) 287
Chapter 10 Surviving the Eighties 316
Epilogue 348
Acknowledgments 353
Notes 359
Selected Bibliography 393
Index 405
I’m familiar with all of these except Handbook to American Womanhood. Never read any except for an updated Betty Crocker. The Old Farmer’s Almanac I remember because it seems to get the weather forecast wrong almost every year. And I too have seen the Woody Allen film. I can’t say as I have much interest in reading this.
Steve, I was intrigued by the books Jess McHugh chose and what impact those books had on our country’s development.
Sears reminded me instantly of my youth. In Germany we had two similar companies:
Quelle (source …) and Neckermann. It was a kind of game which of them had the better offer …
A bit OT:
Both leading companies (now out of business or bankrupt) were based on Jewish companies whose owners had to sell their companies and rights really cheap to Nazi busineemen.
Wolf, the entire printed catalog model is defunct for most retailers in the U.S. But once upon a time, people could order a Model-T car from Sears through its catalog.
Instead of Betty Crocker, I would have chosen THE JOY OF COOKING. although I’m not too sure which has had the bigger influence. The one major book that is missing is the annual Sears Roebuck catalog, that massive compendium of dreams and wishes that sustained generations of (mostly rural) Americans. It was probably not included because it was a catalog and not a “best-seller,” but still…
Jerry, I totally agree with your suggestion that the Sears Roebuck catalog should have been included. I remember looking at the Sears Roebuck catalog when I was a kid. My brother, sisters, and I would all go immediately to the TOYS section and start crafting our CHRISTMAS want-list!
Never, ever saw a Sears, Roebuck catalog. Don’t know where I would have seen one. Maybe it was an eastern US thing.
Having a Sears credit card would be a start.
A very clever idea and good choices for her thesis.
Patti, like you I thought Jess McHugh’s concept of key books in American History was clever and appealing. I learned a lot from reading this book!
And Jerry is right. I remember Megan waiting eagerly for its arrival so she could begin planning for her dolls’ holiday celebration.
Patti, those were the days when Sears used to mail catalogs to consumers. Later, when Sears started to fail, they eliminated the print catalog and went to a web site. But it was too little, too late.
I worked as a mailman for about 6 years. We dreaded the day the Sears catalogs came out.
Steve, I know what you mean! Those Sears catalogs from the 1950s and 1960s were HEAVY!
Got it in the mail?? Not anyone I ever knew when I lived in California, though there were Sears stores.
Rick, I have no idea why California would be exempt from Sears catalogs. Maybe it was just your area.
They weren’t light in the ’70s…though I think the all-slick, oversized Spiegel catalogs were as heavy, and perhaps more ungainly…
If by “familiar with” you mean have heard of, then most. I have read EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW (as well as seeing the movie!), also remember the Betty Crocker cookbook. I read the Franklin and know the McGuffey’s and the Websters and the Farmers’ Almanac (my late mother in law swore by it, but as Steve said, they were always wrong). The Peale didn’t appeal (so to speak) to me, but we pass his Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue and 29th Street whenever we take the express bus home from the city.
Jeff, I was never a fan of the FARMERS’ ALMANAC although I saw plenty of copies at friends’ houses over the years. It was a popular book and still sells plenty today.
Farmer’s Almanac reminds me of the “Hundertjähriger Kalender” aka centennial calendar whose weather prognosis was based on the position of the planets – first edition around 1700 …
Pure astrology!
Wolf, I don’t know how the FARMERS’ ALMANAC comes up with their weather forecasts, but I know for sure they don’t use satellites!
I read the B. Franklin fitfully as a kid, one of the more slogging reads among the Lancer/Magnum Easy Eye classics I’d pick up at the W. T. Grant’s for a quarter apiece. I haven’t stumbled across a copy in decades, though I don’t doubt it’s still in print, for obvious reasons including public domain status. David Reuben’s attitude toward sex and life generally was pretty damned obnoxious (I particularly hold his attempt at a joke about thalidomide babies against him), and in hindsight, the notion that Woody Allen would make a sort of lampoon film taking off from his book seems all too apt. Alex Comfort, the anarchist and poet, certainly was at least a somewhat less perfervid explorer of the matters at hand (so to write). Did she have anything useful to say in the ’80s chapter? Or was that a book that has slipped my sieve-like memory these days (shall Go Look). I don’t know how much they would fit her thesis, but the obvious books by Benjamin Spock and Napoleon Hill might also have fit in well with the prospectus…as would Edward Bellamy. In my childhood, it was Sears, Monkey Ward, Penney’s, Spiegel and no doubt a few others who would burden the mailbox with their annual tree martyrdom…
Todd, you’re right about the flood of print catalogs that would arrive a couple weeks before Thanksgiving filled with “gift ideas.” Of course, those times are over with the cast of paper, the cost of mailing catalogs, and the preference of the Buying Public to shop online today.
Never got the Sears catalog, but Jackie did get the Spiegel catalog for a number of years there. It was pretty huge too.
Jeff, yes, we got Spiegel catalogs, too! And, Montgomery-Ward, too!