America's Jubilee: How in 1826 a generation remembered fifty years of independence [Hardcover]

Andrew Burstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 16, 2001

On July 4, 1826, the United States celebrated its fiftieth birthday with parades and speeches across the country. But what ultimately sanctified the national jubilee in the minds of the celebrants was an extraordinary coincidence: the nearly simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the last pillars of the original republic, already venerated as legends in their own time. It was a watershed in the nation's history, a bright moment when the successors to the Revolutionary dream examined their own lives as they took inspiration from and found nostalgia in the accomplishments of the founders.

In this fascinating book, the distinguished historian Andrew Burstein explores what it was to be an American in 1826. Drawing on private diaries and letters, daily newspapers, and long-buried publications, he shows us the personal lives behind the pageantry and reveals an acutely self-conscious nation–anxiously optimistic about its future, eager to romanticize the Revolutionary past.

We follow the Marquis de Lafayette, the only surviving general of the War of Independence, on his triumphant 1825 tour of all twenty-four states. We visit an Ohio boomtown on the edge of the "new West," a region influenced by the Erie Canal and the commercialism that canal culture brought with it. We see through the eyes of ordinary citizens–the wife of a Massachusetts minister, the author of a popular novel of the day, the family of a prominent statesman–and learn about their gritty understanding of life and death, the nuances of contemporary sexual politics, and the sometimes treacherous drama of public debate. And we meet headline-makers such as the ornery President John Quincy Adams, the controversial Secretary of State Henry Clay, and the notoriously hot-tempered General Andrew Jackson, struggling to act in a statesmanlike way as he waits to be swept into the White House.

In this evocative portrait of the United States in its jubilee year, Burstein shows how 1826 marked an unforgettable time in the republic's history, when a generation embraced the legacy of its predecessors and sought to enlarge its role in America's story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It has become fashionable for historians to select a given year as the focus of their inquiry and to give a portrait of a country or the whole world in that year (see Louis P. Maur's 1831, Forecasts, Dec. 11, and John E. Wills's 1688, Forecasts, Dec. 18). Burstein selects the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence as his moment in this engrossing look at America in transition from fledgling nation to great power. On July 4, 1826, the nation's last surviving founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died. That year, then, was a time of both celebration and mourning for Americans. Burstein (whom readers may remember as a talking head in Ken Burns's documentary on Thomas Jefferson) introduces us to Ethan Allen Brown--the governor of Ohio and an avid proponent of the Erie Canal--who argued that Americans should improve the nation's infrastructure in the interests of connecting disparate people and advancing trade. He then discusses a year in the presidency of John Quincy Adams, who also advocated internal improvements in order to unify the nation, yet who was, Burstein says, a "failure as president" both on account of the diminishment in the power of the office after Jefferson and because of his own lack of political skill. The author also looks closely at the man soon to take power, Andrew Jackson, who had loyal friends and bitter enemies, and who spoke fiercely of the need to "defend the people's liberties." Although Burstein provides some insight into the lives of ordinary citizens of this time, his book is mostly a stately portrait of American politicians and elites in a year that, as Burstein convincingly argues, was pivotal in the nation's development.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-In this engaging historical analysis, the author focuses on the jubilee generation, those Americans who remembered and celebrated 50 years of national independence. July 4, 1826, was a day of parades and speeches across the country. However, it was much more than that; it was a time of deep reverence for the Founding Fathers, of anxious optimism for the future, and of self-conscious soul searching in the present. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Burstein reviews the thoughts and actions of a host of Americans during that pivotal year. Ranging from the famous (John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson) to the unknown then or now, the author skillfully interweaves the stories of those citizens, providing the necessary political and social background to create a panoramic portrait of early 19th-century American life and character. In addition to the colorfully told anecdotes and insightful historical perspectives, teens should particularly enjoy the many striking differences between the daily lives of those people of 1826 and their own lives, as well as the equally striking similarities of deeper, universal concerns.

Robert Saunderson, Berkeley Public Library, CA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (January 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375410333
• ISBN-13: 978-0375410338
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #607,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Survey of 1820's American View of Revolution., May 19, 2003

By 

Wayne A. Smith (Newark, DE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: America's Jubilee: How in 1826 a generation remembered fifty years of independence (Hardcover)

This is an interesting (mostly) survey of America's reaction to the passing of the Revolutionary generation around the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The author focuses on 10 or so personalities great and small to paint a picture of how America reflected the glory and promise of the Revolution through nostalgia, politics, arts and letters.

We see LaFayette on his triumphant return tour to America as the last living connection to the military high command that won our freedom. This description I found fascinating as the old general visited the sons and daughters of his contemporaries (and a few remaining in their own right such as Adams and Jefferson).

Wiley Henry Clay, destiny's child Andrew Jackson and the unfortunate John Quincy Adams all make their appearance as they dominated the stage during the mid-1820's. America's canal boom is described, particularly as it crisscrossed Ohio, a state transformed as water highways joined New England, the Great Lakes economy and the lower Mississippi within its borders.

The quintessentially American drama of Jefferson and Adams expiring on the same day, the exact date of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration, and their famous correspondence is explored. Here the author is able to capture some of the magic and "smile of providence" that from time to time has seemed to settle on America. The effect of simultaneous death that these two brothers of independence (who were to leave that state of grace as fierce political enemies only to make up and join forces for to the benefit of posterity through their rediscovered admiration late in life) was great on our still young nation. The author recounts well the glow that settled on the nation upon discovering that Adams and Jefferson had been called back to their creator together on the anniversary of their great historical moment.

We also learn of the wife of a Massachusetts minister and the ambitious attorney general -- both authors of the time -- as they contemplate the glory of the revolution through popular writings.

This book is a survey -- disjointed and with a lot of background information not necessarily focused on the Year of Jubilee. Its strong points are the fascinating vignettes like Lafayette's tour, the Jefferson-Adams passing and President J.Q. Adams's troubled administration. Weaker, in my opinion, were digression and dissections of the romantic writing of the two authors. Our author dissected their work in a literary analysis that struck me as overdone and not in keeping with the flow of the rest of the book.

Perhaps this book would have been more accurately described as a snapshot of America as it approached its Jubilee rather than as the story of how America celebrated the event. As a survey it has many interesting chapters and the focus on a time immediately following the "Era of Good Feelings" gives some depth to a period often glossed over in other histories. Not bad, overall.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first 50 years of Independence, July 11, 2001

By 

Frank J. Konopka (Shamokin, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: America's Jubilee: How in 1826 a generation remembered fifty years of independence (Hardcover)

Since we have just celebrated the 225th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it seems only appropriate to read an account of how our nation celebrated it's 50th anniversary of the same. This is a well-written book that takes us through that exciting year, and along the way gives us a lot of history about John Quincy Adams and the contested election of 1824. We get mini biographies of many famous people, such as Adams, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and the like, but also people who may have been fairly well-known at that time, but now are not even remotely familiar to us. It was these "unknowns" that impressed me the most, and whom I found fascinating. It's always good to read a historical work that tells me something that I did not know before, and this work delivers that aspect very well. It rounds off my recent reading of the life of John Adams, and tells me how his son fared as President and beyond. This is a book well worth the time to read, and I recommend it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lost in the primary materials, July 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: America's Jubilee: How in 1826 a generation remembered fifty years of independence (Hardcover)

Burstein has an interesting thesis, which he articulates clearly in his Introduction, but which he fails--for me at least--to develope in the succeeding chapters. I fail to see how his long, almost tedious account of Secretary Wirt's absence from his family contributes anything to "uncover the soul of the successor generation." Or how his account of Eliza Foster, or Mrs. Bascom, or Henry Clay's duel with John Randolph contributes much other than what may be intrisically interesting in each. Burstein has used so many obscure primary materials that he gets almost lost in them. And even to a non-historian he doesn't seem to have mastered history outside his materials. On the first page he writes that ". . .America's population had tripled to 12 million . . ." from Independence to the mid-1820's. Maybe it's his arithmetic: 2.5 million to at least 13 million is more like quintuple. And he writes in a note that William Wirt served longer as a cabinet officer than anyone before Harold Ickes. What about Albert Gallatin who served from very early in Jefferson's administration well into Madison's second term? Either Burstein's editor at Knopf was very indulgent, or there must have been many a heated argument.