The Golden Day: A Study in American Literature & Culture by Lewis Mumford

Originally published in 1926 with a new forward by the author in 1957

For the Fourth of July each year I select a work in American history or culture to mark the occasion. This year in a bit of serendipity, I spied this work as I unpacked a box of books that I'd hastily assembled as a part of our move out West. When I pulled this book our of the box on about July 3, I knew that I had my reading for this year.

The Golden Day: A Study in American Literature and Culture was originally published in 1926 by a young Lewis Mumford. Many today won't recognize his name, but from the 1920s to the 1980s, he was one of America's leading public intellectuals. (He died at age 94 in 1990.) In fact, to describe Mumford is to encounter a quandary. How exactly to describe him? In The Golden Day, he's a literary critic and historian of American literature, but these fields are only two of the many fields that he wrote about. Wikipedia describes Mumford as "an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer. Mumford made signal contributions to social philosophy, American literary and cultural history and the history of technology."  This comes closer, but the breadth of Mumford's interests and knowledge is truly astonishing. And, I should note, he published all of his many books without having finished his college degree! (His education was interrupted by illness and then service in World War I.) 

In The Golden Day, Mumford focuses on American literature and philosophical thought as a way of apprehending the American experiment. Mumford's contemporary and compatriot, Van Wyck Brooks, was working much the same project at the time, as well.) In fact, as a part of his project, Mumford played a major role in delivering Herman Melville's literary works--such as Moby Dick--from the obscurity into which these works had fallen. Melville and his pre-Civil War contemporaries provide the foundation of this work. But while Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville, and Hawthorne provide the foundation of the work--the Golden Day--this isn't where Mumford begins his assessment of American culture. Mumford begins his examination with the advent of modernity, which coincided with the European discovery and colonization of the Americas. Protestantism (especially the Puritan variety at the beginning and evangelical Christianity later), capitalism, and later industrialism, along with the existence of the frontier until late into the 19th-century,  all shape American culture. But until the Golden Day, the literature of a nascent nation was not especially noteworthy (with some exceptions, such as the last great Puritan divine, Jonathan Edwards). But starting with James Fenimore Cooper's work exploring the early (eastern) frontier and its challenges and conflicts his works explored, we begin to see American literature form into more familiar themes. This momentum gains a full head of steam with Emerson, whom Mumford holds in the highest regard. Indeed, although I don't believe that he stated it specifically, I contend that Mumford considers Emerson the foundation stone of American literature and high culture. 

Of course, in the pre-Civil War era, Emerson was not alone. His younger contemporary and friend  Henry David Thoreau was an active and outspoken voice, as was the great bard of democracy and America, Walt Whitman. Rounding out this core is Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who's most famous for The Scarlett Letter.  (As I noted earlier, Melville's work had fallen into obscurity by Mumford's time, and Melville had never gained the esteem and notoriety of his great contemporaries described here.) Mumford carefully considers each writer's contributions and perspectives. And I should hasten to add that in addition to cataloging and noting the contribution of each of these figures, Mumford also provides insightful criticism. He not only provides a tour of the wine cellar and catalogues the various vintages, but he beautifully describes and critiques them as well.

The Civil War provides the key turning point in the life of the nation. The vanquishing of the slave-holding South and the triumph of the North with its industrialism, along with the settlement of the Mountain West, turn America in a different direction. Mumford perhaps under-appreciates or under-emphasizes the economics of both the plantation system of the South and its effects on the American scene even after the defeat of the Confederacy. But he does turn a keen eye on the post-war North and its cultural heritage. Here, at the center, is Mark Twain. But other figures, less recognized today, such as William Dean Howells, were also at work, and Emerson, Whitman, and Melville, all remained active for a time after the War. After Twain, the next great figure Mumford explores in some depth isn't a novelist or a poet, but the philosopher-psychologist William James. (Mumford give short shrift to William's famous novelist brother, Henry James.) William James, while not a poet, is nevertheless a gifted essayist and one of the fathers the uniquely American philosophy of pragmatism (along with the brilliant but eccentric Charles Saunders Pierce and the more prosaic John Dewey). Moving forward to the time of his writing, Mumford notes the importance (and limitations) of John Dewey, who was growing in stature and would attain an especially high status in the era between the wars as a public intellectual. (Mumford wryly notes that Dewey's prose is like taking the subway: it gets you where you need to go, but the trip isn't very scenic.) 

One should be sure to read the new Introduction to the work that Mumford wrote in 1957,  Mumford not only critiques the work of others, but he's also instructive in critiquing himself. For instance, he rues having mostly (or completely?) ignored Emily Dickinson, and he says he'd treat Melville and William James differently. And, perhaps most noteworthy, he would have treated Henry Adams differently. By 1957, Mumford appreciates Adams as the prophet of the disintegration of Western Civilization as well as prophet of the machine age (something that Mumford undertook as well). 

As a way to celebrate our nation in this fraught time, this book was a perfect fit. Mumford doesn't hide warts and deformities, but he nevertheless appreciates the American experience with a depth of perception that few can match. As we who live in a new Gilded Age and in an era of disintegration, the experiences and models of the past take on a new importance, and Lewis Mumford provides us with excellent guidance as we seek to mine the past to gain our bearings and help us set our course. 

Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick

Why indeed? How about because it’s the best piece of literature written by an American? The Great Gatsby and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn might claim the title (from me anyway), but Moby-Dick stands out. This novel, which started out as just another novel about a sea-faring voyage, morphed into something much more: a meditation on the great world. 

Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the award winning In the Heart of the Sea about the whaling ship Essex tragedy that affected Melville’s work, writes a brief and perceptive appreciation of this great book. Philbrick’s book works well because his brief chapters reference scenes and characters from Moby-Dick that serve as a gateway to a deeper understanding of Melville, its time (America headed unknowingly into the crucible of the Civil War), and its characters. Each character plays a role in the drama of a ship’s crew, the great oceans, and the Universe. Philbrick reminds us that Melville has packed so much into this book some think is  "about a whale". Moby-Dick, for all its profundity, is in parts quite humorous, informational, didactic, and deeply insightful about human relations and our relation to world. Philbrick’s book reminds us of this. If, like me, you’ve only listened to it once (I’ve never read it), Philbrick’s book reminds you of why you can read it again (and again) with great profit and growing appreciation. 

If you’re wondering about why people make such a fuss about Moby-Dick, or if you read it as a youth and found it a bore, then pick-up Philbrick’s book and read it to gain insights into Melville and his great book and to motivate you to go read Melville’s masterpiece.

Postscript: I’ve listened to two of the (what I consider) three of the greatest American novels. (I also listened to Gatsby. I read Huck Finn in high school.) While I intend to go back and read Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby, I value and recommend the listening experience. The performance (more than just a reading) of Moby-Dick by Frank Muller is outstanding. It got me into a book that I had started a couple of times but that I'd become bogged down in. Now I know where I’m going. For a fine appreciation of audio books, enjoy this NYT piece by Stanford anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann. By the way, I, too, have memories of passages from books that I heard associated with places. My favorite venue for listening was driving my car (not so much lately), but planes and trains work. Walking serves as a fine occasion for listening, too.

For the Fourth: John Patrick Diggins's Eugene O'Neill's America: Desire Under Democracy

My custom is to pick a work of American history to read in celebration of the 4th. This year, I decided on a work by John Patrick Diggins (who edged out John Lukac's A New Republic: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century). Diggins final book was published on June 30, and while I still mourn his passing, I was pleased to learn that his final work, Why Niebuhr Now, would make it to press. I eagerly await its arrival @ PL. Fortunately, I had on hand his next most recent book, a book on Eugene O'Neill, which I'd only dipped into. I haven't seen a great deal of O'Neill, but what I have--oh, my! I had the experience of seeing a film production of The Iceman Cometh by the American Film Theater, starring Frederic March, Robert Ryan, and Lee Marvin as Hickey. What a great Bijou Theater experience. Then, in 1999 (I think), I saw Broadway production with the lovely One Hungary Panda, who graciously accompanied me to this. The production starred Kevin Spacey, and I thought it superb. O'Neill is not easy. Two factors greatly influence his drama: his Irish-American family and his reading of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Spengler. This odd coupling doesn't make for much comedy (but try "Ah, Wilderness"), but it's great stuff. (BTW, O'Neill won a Nobel prize and four Pulitzer prizes for his work.)

So why Diggins? Because his work, on American political thought,Herman Melville, John Adams, on the pragmatists and their critics, Weber (his visit to America), Lincoln & Reagan (yes, I've started this one): all focus on the vicissitudes of democracy and power and how it all fits--or doesn't. No one, but perhaps the late Christopher Lasch, combines the intensity of analysis with deep historical understanding. He's certainly one of my favorite American historians.

Happy Independence Day!