The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Hardcover)

by Debby Applegate (Author)
Key Phrases: antislavery society, war redder than blood, peculiar minister, The Most Famous Man, New York, Plymouth Church (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Now nearly forgotten, Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) was an immensely famous minister, abolitionist and public intellectual whose career was rocked by allegations of adultery that made nationwide headlines. In this engaging biography, American studies scholar Applegate situates this curiously modern 19th-century figure at the focus of epochal developments in American culture. Beecher's mesmerizing oratory and fiery newspaper columns made him one of the first celebrities of the nascent mass media. His antislavery politics, though often tepid and vacillating, Applegate argues, injected a note of emotionalism into the debate that—with his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin—galvanized Northern public opinion. And by preaching a loving God instead of a wrathful one, the author contends, Beecher repudiated the dour Calvinism of his youth and made happiness and self-fulfillment, rather than sin and guilt, the centerpiece of modern Christian ideology. (The implicit moral anarchy of his creed, critics charged, evinced itself in his sexual indiscretions.) Although marred by occasionally facile psychoanalysis (Applegate describes Beecher, the seventh of 12 siblings, as a classic "middle child" personality), this assessment of Beecher is judicious and critical. Applegate gives an insightful account of a contradictory, fascinating, rather Clintonesque figure who, in many ways, was America's first liberal. (June 27)
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From The Washington Post
After dinner one evening in December 1847, Susan Howard, daughter of a prominent Brooklyn family, wrote a letter to her brother to apologize for a long silence. Much had been happening, she said, but "were I to reduce them all to the first elements . . . I verily believe they would all come down to Beecher, Beecher, BEECHER! He seems to be a subject of universal interest, and he is a curiosity, that is a fact. Don't ask what I think of him, I can't tell you, for the life of me. I only know that I am intensely interested."

As Debby Applegate's fine new biography, The Most Famous Man in America, makes clear, Howard was far from alone in her fascination with the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, one of the many great American figures who dominated an era just before slipping forgotten into history, providing the present with an object lesson in the brevity of celebrity. Preachers and commentators, even the most influential, are particularly prone to this fate, for their power lies in spoken or hastily written words -- words addressed to occasions that burn bright for those experiencing them but that may not resonate beyond the given moment.

Applegate, who holds a PhD in American studies, rescues Beecher from popular obscurity in this illuminating and thorough book. A son of the powerful Calvinist divine Lyman Beecher, young Henry Ward -- brother of Harriet, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin -- rose to prominence as a charismatic Congregationalist clergyman in Brooklyn Heights in the 19th century. His message was not as dark as his father's. To Lyman, talk of God tended to revolve around sin and the looming prospect of damnation; to Henry (born in 1813), the conversation was more about love and salvation. "I do not recollect," the son later said, that "one word had been said to me, or one syllable had been uttered in the pulpit, that led me to think there was any mercy in the heart of God for a sinner like me."

Where the father preached the fear of darkness, the son spoke of the hope of light. "It is Love the world wants," Henry declared from his pulpit in the 1850s. "Higher than morality, higher than philanthropy, higher than worship, comes the love of God. That is the chiefest thing."

It was not, however, always the chiefest thing in the Beecher family ethos. Applegate writes vividly of the tensions Lyman Beecher's vision created for his many children. "Lyman left his children a complex legacy," she notes. "They basked in his extraordinary love even as they quailed under his terrible theology." Two of them, Henry and Harriet, became national forces -- yet two others, Applegate writes, committed suicide. Henry loved his father, but Henry loved something else even more: making others love him. This hunger for the approval of the crowd and the affection of the congregation drew Henry out of his father's long shadow. "The less he preached of God's wrath, and the more he emphasized the pleasures of God's love," Applegate writes of Henry, "the more people came to listen."

And how he relished that. Congregants from Manhattan came to his Plymouth Church in Brooklyn in what were known as "Beecher Boats," and Beecher's embrace of abolition during the Civil War era earned him the privilege of delivering the first remarks as Union troops reclaimed Fort Sumter. He raised money to buy rifles -- called "Beecher Bibles" -- to arm antislavery forces in Kansas. Abraham Lincoln believed his support of emancipation essential to the Union victory.

Though at home in what Roger Williams called "the garden of the church," Beecher also enjoyed life in Williams's "wilderness of the world." He loved horses, shopping, art, books, classical music and more than a few women who were not his wife; this last weakness led to a celebrated scandal in New York as he faced legal proceedings for alleged adultery. An 1874 trial for "criminal conversation" with a married parishioner led one newspaper to write: "We can recall no one event since the murder of Lincoln that has so moved the people as this question whether Henry Ward Beecher is the basest of men." The jury ended in deadlock.

The verdict on Beecher's significance in the history of American religion, though, is clear. He was an early avatar of the highly personalized, gentler Christianity that came to characterize the nation as it grew more prosperous and more cosmopolitan. Describing his intense religious experience of Jesus, Beecher recalled a day in May when he was in seminary in Cincinnati: "There rose up before me a view of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners -- not of saints, but of sinners unconverted, before they were any better -- because they were so bad and needed so much; and that view has never gone from me." It has never gone from America, either: Evangelical Christianity is still founded in large measure on the personal experience of the individual, and, for a time in the midst of the Victorian Age, Beecher overcame childhood fears to articulate a vision of faith that won him fame in a nascent tabloid age. For readers seeking the roots of the popular religion and popular culture of our own time, Applegate's resurrection of Henry Ward Beecher is an excellent place to begin.

Reviewed by Jon Meacham
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (June 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385513968
• ISBN-13: 978-0385513968
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,129 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Four and a half stars..., October 14, 2006

By	Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I would not have chosen to read a book about Henry Ward Beecher, but I received The Most Popular Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate as a gift. I was pleasantly surprised by this engrossing and well-written story.

I knew just a little about Beecher, most of it coming from Ron Power's book, Mark Twain. I wasn't aware that Beecher's father was the famous Congregationalist preacher, Lyman Beecher. Henry was born and raised in an austere, Calvinist household. They did not celebrate Christmas, holidays or birthdays. Yet, Henry did not grow up in a joyless or loveless home. Lyman adored his twelve children and spent lots of time with them, insisting that "they were endowed with great gifts of intelligence, compassion and self-discipline." Education was a priority (even for the girls) and spirited discussion was expected and encouraged.

Henry did not set out to enter the ministry, but after graduating from Amherst, he found himself enrolled in his father's seminary. Once he entered the ministry, he wasn't always the best parson, but he was a brilliant preacher. This was a time period when entertaining speakers were comparable to the rock stars of today. He eventually found a home at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights. While there, he became embroiled in the abolitionist movement. In fact, Beecher is credited with bringing anti-slavery to the mainstream.

Beecher was largely responsible for changing the core beliefs about Christianity in the 19th Century. He switched the focus from a vengeful and wrathful God to a loving and forgiving one. He was not without his critics, and some accused him of turning people into Beecherites rather than Christians. All great men have their weaknesses, and Beecher's was his ego. He liked to live very lavishly (after a very frugal start) and was constantly overextended. His wife, Eunice, was a difficult woman and Beecher's treatment of her wasn't always exemplary. But the biggest scandal to befall Beecher involved his many alleged extramarital affairs. His best friend, Theodore Tilton, eventually sued him over an alleged affair between Beecher and Tilton's wife, Elizabeth. These infidelities would blacken his name, split his parish and torture his soul.

Applegate does a magnificent job of bringing Beecher to life. The only shortcoming I can see in The Most Famous Man is that there is virtually nothing about Beecher's children. If not for this, I would have given this book a resounding 5 star vote.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A biography of great depth, November 22, 2006

By	Bruce Bain "Romans 9:33" (Englewood, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"The Most Famous Man in America: the biography of Henry Ward Beecher"
by DEBBY APPLEGATE
*******GENERAL*******

Without question, DEBBY APPLEGATE has tremendous depth as a biographer, but Applegate also has potential as an eminent historian. When I read her chapters, I was surprised at the depth of historical knowledge presented. The research is illuminative of all phases of the life of Henry Ward Beecher. Applegate connects Beecher to the people surrounding him, and to the American nation as a whole; but this book's real penetration is its coverage of American society leading up to the Civil War. In fact, her treatment of each member of the Beecher Family is rich, impressing upon us the importance of the Beecher family in the greater context of the fabric of the American nation. There are no indications in the cover or Introduction that inform us that Applegate has has this depth as an historian, in addition to being a good biographer.

The characterization of the proverbial "Connecticut Yankee" takes on flesh in this thorough biography, because Applegate can write concerning the fullness of the human personality which transcends the superficial aspects of human character. Not every biographer can accomplish this, but we often wouldn't know it. One is seldom aware if a biographer fails to show you something. There is nothing pedestrian about Applegate's writing. This is a writer with a gift for making a human being almost transparent.

*****SPECIFICS********

Applegate's biography comes at a time when popular authors mislead and confuse people with misinformation and extensive historical ommissions as to the character and nature of American religious figures of significance and the times in which they made significant contribution to the life of the American nation.

Applgegate has the ability to show poignant contrasts in the Beecher family, but more importantly, Applegate elaborates the background of turmoil as the controversy of slaveholding begins to embroil the young nation, For example, the author makes clear the social situation at Amherst college and other American colleges, where idealistic young men and women who were pushed toward religious revival by the faculty, surprised society by including the liberation of black slaves as part of a step away from sin and toward salvation. This was an unpredictable outcome of ever-present evangelism efforts in American communities. Applegate accurately identifies this fervor as comparable to the campus activism of the 1960's.

Furthermore, Applegate is not describing events as though they were occurrances separate from the actions of individuals, which is how textbooks often show events, as though they were disembodied from actual persons. Rather, Applegate is showing that historical and social trends are distinctly the product of specific individuals, and also that these events are the outcome of the conflict of specific ideas that are embodied in the people. An example of this is the religious strife in the Boston area brought about by the differences between the Protestants (notably Lyman Beecher) and the Catholics.

The other hotbed was in Cincinnati, OHIO where Lyman Beecher ran LANE SEMINARY, an institution whose Abolitionist activism reached boiling point, prompting mob violence and threatening the rule of law.

Applegate, in my opinion, deserves a high stature as an American biographer, and her subject is essential to a clear understanding of American history. She begins with the father, Lyman Beecher, and demonstrates the imprint he made upon his children. Sometimes that imprint was a torment, even if well intentioned. What is fascinating about Applegate's handling of Lyman Beecher is her writing never strays from a balanced and impartial neutrality. She never presents anyone as though she were, in some petty and judgemental fashion, holding the person up for us to ridicule. Applegate takes the person at face value. Perhaps Applegate comes from a family where it is commonly accepted that every person has an innate worth. I did not come from that kind of a background, but if Applegate can introduce every personality she studies, in this manner, I'm eager to read all she writes.

--Bruce R. Bain


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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Like the man himself, a flawed and fascinating book, March 29, 2007

By	Elizabeth Clare "author, To the Ends of the E... (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book opens up the life of this enormously famous evangelist and restores him to his proper place in American history.

One of the most interesting sections of the book to me was the discussion of how Beecher's philosophy led him to advocate mercy for the South after the war. As Applegate writes, "Henry genuinely believed that sin was itself a form of suffering, making further punishment cruel and unusual." Henry also believed that the amount of military brute force that would be required to make the South implement social equality for blacks would be so extreme that it would corrupt the United States. He warned against authoritarianism and the evils of concentrating more power in Washington. Interesting and still timely subject for debate!

I do have one dismaying caveat about this book. When you read history, you have to feel that you're in good hands and that the author is steering you right. After all, you probably don't know much about the subject; that's why you're reading the book. That's why I was astonished, in the one area of the book I did know something about, to find a pretty egregious historical error.

It was in the section that discussed the annexation of Texas. Applegate breezes through this section describing how the United States made a blatant land grab of part of Mexico -- thus erasing the entire period of American colonization of Texas, the Texas Revolution, and the 9-year existence of the Republic of Texas, an internationally recognized independent nation. I have to admit that I felt uneasy for the rest of the book. Applegate's knowledge of Beecher is impeccable, but I have to wonder about her grasp of the larger times in which he lived.