SOME BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DESIDERATA IN AMERICAN …SOME BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DESIDERATA IN AMERICAN HISTORY....

266 American Antiquarian Society. [Oct.,

SOME BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DESIDERATAIN AMERICAN HISTORY.

BY WILLIAM M A C D O N A L D .

It is not necessary to argue before this Society theimportance of bibliography, or to plead for the recog-nition of bibliography as a substantive part of historicalresearch or publication. The historian who to-dayaspires to writing of the larger sort, the production ofdefinitive histories as distinguished from monographs,is not only grateful for, but must depend very largelyupon, the bibliographical investigations of others; whilethe learning involved in the preparation of a compre-hensive and adequate bibliography, even of a smalltopic, is sometimes quite as great, and hence quite aaworthy of honor, as that required for the production ofa narrative, a Ijiography, or a formal treatise. Theediting of documents has long been regarded as a worthyhistorical performance, and there is no reason why thecritical editing of titles, when done with equal precisionand range, should not be equally esteemed.

The purpose of this paper is to call attention brieflyto certain of the more pressing bibliographical needs inthe field of American history. I intentionally omit allconsideration of the numerous bibliographies of smallsubjects, or of parts of large subjects, many of themhighly meritorious, which have appeared in recent years;and I also pass by, as having qxiite a different aim, theselective and more or less popular bibliographies withwhich almost every writer of historical pretensions feelsit necessary to round out his volumes. What I am con-cerned with, rather, is certain larger and much more

1911.] Bibliographical Desiderata. 267

serious undertakings; not lightly to be entered upon,indeed, but very much in need of being done. Theplain fact of the matter is, that, with the enormousmass of historical material in the American field nowavailable, and the portentous annual increment ofpublication, we are seriously in danger of being swampedin the effort to manage any considerable part of it; or,what is worse, of losing the sense of historical perspec-tive altogether, and of assuming that we are reallywriting history when we are editing somebody's journal,or publishing the annals of some local church, or tabu-lating the prices of commodities a century or two ago.And since we may be assured that the publication ofsuch material will go on, gaining in scope and significancefrom year to year; we must in some way keep abreastof it; which means that we must prepare to do a greatdeal of systematic and comprehensive bibliographicalwork.

I earnestly hope that it will not be considered presump-tuous, or in the least in derogation of the courtesy whichshould always exist in the relations of learned societies,if I call attention first of all to a work which, in the fieldof historical bibliography, has as yet neither rival norsuperior. I refer to Winsor's "Narrative and CriticalHistory of America." If I had to dispense with all theolder books of American history that could be got onwithout, I could let most of them go, with only moderategrief and tears, save three: Richard Hildreth, for theas yet unrivalled comprehensiveness and accuracy ofhis information; Moses Coit Tyler, for the searchinginsight of his "Literary History of the American Revo-lution"; and Justin Winsor, for his "critical essays" andgeneral bibliographical notes. In the breadth and sure-ness of Winsor's bibliographical knowledge, as well asin the ease with which he handled it, his scholarship,like his volumes, was monumental.

Yet the twenty-five years that have elapsed since thepublication of the "Narrative and Critical History"began have witnessed enormous changes in both the


character and bulk of American historical material.Much that was then in manuscript has been printed,and some, unhappily, lost; many books once authori-tative have been superseded; new books have pouredforth like a flood; monographic series have been createdand multiplied. The statements of Winsor's biblio- ** *graphies can nolonger be accorded the measure of author-ity which they once had. In certain other respects, too,the work has come to seem old; for example, the arrange-ment of the notes is not always such as to facilitatetheir use, and the indexes are inadequate.

I am well aware that anyone who to-day suggeststhe issuance of another co-operative history, invitesdenunciation as a disturber of the public peace. YetI frankly wish that, so far at least as the bibliographiesare concerned, we might have a new edition of Winsor,or a work which bibliographically, at least, should be com-parable to it. The task is a large one, and not everyhistorical scholar is competent to engage in it. Perhapsthe suggestion should best come from our friend andneighbor, the Massachusetts Historical Society, withthe co-operation of a number of whose members theoriginal work was carried through; but in view of thefact that the President of that Society has said graceover our own new cornerstone, and that we have fur-nished a large part of the Mather Diary which thatSociety is now printing, it would not, I am sure, bethought imbecoming in the American AntiquarianSociety to express its interest in the rejuvenation of awork which, after all the wear and tear of time, is stillthe greatest single product of American historical schol-arship and a treasured possession of the learned world.

A second urgent need is for a bibliography of Americannewspapers and other periodicals. The importance ofnewspapers as historical sources has been, if not imder-estimated, at least scantily recognized, by historians;and with the exception of our associate. Professor Mc-Master, few writers of comprehensive histories havemade either extended or systematic use of them. Yet


I have come to believe that neither our political nor oursocial development can be truly set forth until the wealthof data hidden in newspapers and magazines has beenopened up and made available. It is to the newspapersthat we must go, for example, to complete our informa-tion about the growth of colonial commerce, manufac-tures, and agriculture; the influence of English politicson the political activities and public opinion of thecolonies; the progress and character of the Revolution-ary agitation of the eighteenth century; the reasons forthe success of the Federal Constitution, one of the mostinteresting topics awaiting its finished treatment; andabout the nature and growth of slavery .̂ In the nine-teenth century, one must seek largely in newspapersand magazines the origin and history of such greatreligious agitations as the Unitarian movement, or themovements of social reform which multiply after 1815in the East and the West, or the influence of Europeanthought upon the great flowering period of Americanliterature, or those great international reactions of cul-ture and social activity which more and more havebrought the American and the European mind to com-mon ground.

If the bibliographical undertaking which I first men-tioned is one which we, as a Society, might offer to sharewith the Massachusetts Historical Society, a newspaperbibliography is pre-eminently our own task; since no-where else is there a collection of such material compar-able to our own. I do not underrate the magnitude ofthe work; it is, perhaps, the most considerable under-taking of a bibliographical sort that now needs to bedone, although a well-organized co-operative plan wouldlighten the labor. Once definitely accomplished, how-ever, and with the partial or complete files now extantlocated and listed, the historian would be in a position tobegin the work, which we all realize has got to be done,of writing large sections of American history over again,as well as of taking up numerous important topics whichas yet, for lack of such assistance, lie neglected.

270 American Antiquarian Sodety. [Oct.,

What has been said about newspapers and magazinesapplies with equal force to early American statute law.Having had in preparation, for what is coming to seema good many years, a collection of the English statutesrelating to America, fortified with references intendedto show the influence of those statutes on the laws ofthe colonies and states, I have had much occasion tofeel the great lack of a comprehensive bibliography.The material is widely scattered, some of it is of exceed-ing rarity, the editions are numerous and confusing, andsome of the bibliographical problems intricate. Yet inscarcely any field to-day are more interesting and sub-stantial results to be had than in the field of Americanlegal history. Whether the laws of the colonies beregarded as part of an English inheritance, or as a re-flection of social conditions, or as an effort to delimit orcoerce a future social development;or, as in New England,when mingled with Calvinistic theology and thePentateuch, as an heroic attempt to justify the ways ofGod to man, it is to the statutes that we must go if wewould discover why many things were as they were.As a whole, this is a class of material hitherto compara-tively little drawn upon, and often regarded as closedto any save the highly trained lawyer. There is herean opportunity for a scholar, apt in bibliography aswell as competent in legal knowledge, to point out theextent and whereabouts of the few hundred volumes inwhich the history of American law and jurisprudence,as well as of our political institutions and opinions, isin large part recorded; and thus to pave the way for ahistory of American law.

A fourth desideratum is a bibliography of Americantravel. At Brown University we have for some yearsbeen buying all the books of this class that came in ourway; and the collection, supplemented by those of theJohn Carter Brown Library and the Rhode IslandHistorical Society, may in time become tolerably com-plete. I could hardly mention a more interesting taskthan the preparation of such a bibliography would be.


It has much of the fascination of discovery, not to speakof the perennial interest of learning what our neighborsand guests have thought about us. The bulk of suchmaterial of English and American origin is considerable,while the titles in French, German, and other languagesrun far into the hundreds. The German travel liter-ature is peculiarly rich and voluminous, particularlyfor the later eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries;and even a superficial acquaintance with it shows anextensive field of recorded observation into which fewhistorians have entered. The wide-spread interest inEurope, especially in Germany and France, from theyears of the Revolution to 1850, in what was going onin America, and the infiuence of American ideas andachievements upon political, economic, and philosophicalthought in Europe, is a subject which will some day bedeveloped, and upon which the travel literature wiUthrow indispensable light. Incidentally, the extent towhich foreign observers, and, for that matter, Americanobservers also, have borrowed from one another, orpadded their pages with data whose printed soiircethey failed to acknowledge, is historically worth knowing;as fully, for example, as we ah-eady know about Carverand Chateaubriand..

Akin to the travel literature in importance, and his-torically best considered in connection with it, is theconsiderable amount of writing about America by Euro-peans who never visited it, but who derived their im-pressions of the country and its people from the travelnarratives of their countrymen, or the pages of a fewdocuments or early histories. If the often inaccuracyof this literature disposes one to think it of relativelysmall significance, we should remember that the historianhas to deal with ideas as well as with events; with popularimpression as well as with demonstrable truth; and thatin the field of international relations, as well as in thosehigher realms of learning and culture which ought toknow no geographical boundaries, what America wassupposed to be has often been quite as determining a


factor as any assured knowledge of what America ac-tually was.

Less voluminous, but still ranging over pretty muchthe whole field of American history, and greatly neededby the student, would be a bibliography of town, city,and county histories, and of printed local records. Inno class of historical material, perhaps, is there greatervariation in quality, method, and permanent value.Many local histories are little more than aggregationsof material, thrown together with little skill or intelli-gence, the work of compilers-with more zeal than discern-ment; yet preserving in their ill-printed pages a price-less wealth of data, tradition, formal record, or docu-ments. Others, again, are the ripe work of mature andwell-trained scholars, who for the love of history havetold the story of their town or county in worthy literaryform and scientific spirit. Not even the worst of them,'I feel confident, can be neglected, or fails to includemuch that posterity ought to know. The work of thehistorian would be greatly facihtated by the publicationof a complete list of such books, containing not only theusual bibliographical information, but also a criticalanalysis and appraisal; for in bibliography it is notenough to know what has been printed; we want to knowalso whether or not it has been printed well, or is intruth what it purports to be. In the same class, ofcourse, and properly to be included in the same exhibit,is the scanty list of printed local records. A coloredmap showing the towns, cities, and counties whose his-tories have been written or local records published,would be very informing.

On the subject of the Indians I have no special knowl-edge, but a comprehensive bibhography of works on thatsubject is a much-needed addition to our historicalhelps. The problem here seems to be mainly one ofcritical evaluation. Rather more, I venture to think,than in any other department, the scientific studies ofrecent years have rendered. obsolete a considerablemass of earlier writing; and a further considerable quan-

191L] Bibliographical Desiderata. 273

tity, if not wholly obsolete, is no longer authoritativeas a whole. A good deal of the newest and most reliabledata has to be sought in relatively unfamiliar quarters,or in extended series of publications, like those of theBureau of Ethnology or the Peabody Museum, whichstill lack comprehensive indexes; while another largeportion must be sought in languages other than English.A critical bibliography of this important literature wouldseem to be a work well worth undertaking, and an appro-priate one in the present state of knowledge of the sub-ject.

I have left until the last two historical fields which,though of limited chronological extent, are seriouslyin need of bibliographical treatment. One of these isthe American Revolution. It is entirely natural thatthe years of our birth as a nation should retain for usperennial interest, and that the stream of publicationshould now steadily on. The literature of the AmericanRevolution is immense, and of the greatest variety:statutes, proclamations, judicial records, legislativejournals and documents, town records, records of pro-vincial congresses, of committees of correspondence, ofcommittees of safety, newspapers, pamphlets, broad-sides, sermons, printed narratives, military and navalrecords, diplomatic correspondence, personal letters,diaries and autobiographies, and maps. Many impor-tant sources exist in a number of editions, varyingappreciably in completeness, accuracy, or editorial meth-od; others still remain in their original issues, carefullyhoused in a few libraries, beyond the reach of the m̂ a-jority of workers. There is hardly any part of the fieldin which the study of new classes of material—such,for example, as newspapers or sermons—is not throwingnew light on old topics, and changing correspondinglyour opinions regarding them. Yet there is still a greatdeal that must be known before the true story of theAmerican Revolution can be written. Such are thestate of public opinion before and during the war; the.civil history of the States and local communities during


the period of hostilities; and the economic conditionsin the country throughout the period. The materialfor the study of these questions exists in print, at leastin quantity sufficient to serve as a basis for conclusionsarid generalizations; but we need a bibliographer tomake it available. In the correlation of the great massesof European documents which are now, thanks to theBureau of Historical Research of the Carnegie Insti-tution, being industriously explored, with what isalready accessible in this country, there is a work whichmay well attract any scholar or learned society thatcares for large things. With all the work that has beendone upon it, the period grows upon our hands the morewe study it. We are eager for every tool and implementthat will help us to dig to the foundation of it, or takethe measure of its every part, or view it from everypossible angle. I have sometimes thought that if onlyI could understand why Washington and Franklin sidedwith the Revolution rather than with the mother coun-try, when they were free to take either course, I mightwith more confidence hope sometime to understandAmerican history.

The other field in which bibliographical guidance isgreatly needed is the Civil War. Here again, as in theAmerican Revolution, the material with which thehistorian must acquaint himself covers almost everyform of printed record; but the bulk of the materialfar exceeds that relating to any other epoch. Besidesthe Federal and State governments, whose official doc-mnentary publications number thousands of volumes,and the military historians, who have poured out atorrent of regimental and other histories, there is alsoavailable a large literature of reminiscence and biography.If one may judge by the current catalogues of second-hand collections and auction sales, there is still a robustdemand for Civil War literature; while the offerings ofthe last two or three years suggest that some prettylarge accmnulations are being worked off. I confessto a feeling that the value of much of this literature is


in inverse proportion to its bulk; but whether that beso or not, there is great need of a critical guide to thethousands of volumes in which is recorded the historyof our great civil struggle. Now that the war has be-come, for most of us, an historical fact rather than apersonal experience, the task of critical appraisal hasbeen made easier, and libraries may buy with morediscernment and assurance.

It is always interesting to observe the channels inwhich, from generation to generation, the writing of apeople's history seems successively to flow. The con-ception of history as a whole is, for most of us, too largeand too vague; it is easier and more satisfying to singleout the one or two aspects of a great subject that mostappeal to us, and to study and write about them. Thus,in American history our historians have principallyconcerned themselves with political and constitutionalquestions; with the addition, in New England, of eccles-iastical issues and controversies. So far as politicaldevelopment goes, that has been treated mainly on itsnational side; and the great question of slavery has beenhandled most commonly as a question of politics. Withthe exception of early cartography, no other aspect ofthe subject seems to have engaged persistently the atten-tion of a considerable number of scholars, or been accept-ed by the schools and the public as the kind of historythat ought to be written.

Nevertheless, I think we are all coming to see thatthis limited conception of the historical field needs tobe much enlarged. Thanks largely to the leadershipof Professor Turner, the history of the West is beginningto be written, but a great deal more must be done inthat direction before even the political side of our na-tional life will be fully understood. With the exceptionof national ñnance, our financial history as a whole hasbeen little explored. We have no more than touchedthe fringes of our economic and social history, notwith-standing that economic influences have undoubtedlybeen very potent in shaping political and constitutional


issues. On the economic aspect of negro slavery westill need a great deal more light. "We have hardlyany first-rate state history, and very few good town orcity histories; while as regards ecclesiastical historyand legal history, those two domains have hardly beenentered at all. The number of definitive biographies ofAmerican public men is very small, perhaps less thantwenty-five. If one steps into the fascinating realmof what may be called the history of ideas, and seeks toknow the evolution of American culture or the placeof the American mind in the world of thought, he mustfor the most part grope his way without guide or map.It should be a chastening refiection that the most search-ing and thoughtful book yet written on the AmericanRevolution, the "Literary History" of Moses CoitTyler, should still be almost the only representativeof its class.

All of this means, of course, that the study of Americanhistory is rapidly enlarging its scope, entering new fieldsas well as reworking old ones. The greatest obstacle,as I see it, is just now the lack of critical bibliographyto show us exactly what our historical riches are, andwhere they are. With all the ntunerous agenciesalready at work, there are still important tasks waitingto be done. The larger ones, very likely, are necessarilyco-operative in their nature; the lesser ones are wellwithin the powers of individual workers. I ventureto hope that in these important undertakings thisSociety may take a worthy share.

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