Andrew Jackson
I have undertaken to give some account of the genesis and development in American letters of certain germinal ideas that have come to be reckoned traditionally American--how they came into being here, how they were opposed, and what influence they have exerted in determining the form and scope of our characteristic ideals and institutions. In pursuing such a task, I have chosen to follow the broad path of our political, economic, and social development, rather than the narrower belletristic...
--Vernon Louis Parrington
In the spring of 1928, the literary community eagerly awaited the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes for literature. Many were expecting playwright Eugene O'Neill to win an award for "Strange Interlude." They anticipated Thornton Wilder would win for his novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. They guessed, correctly, that Edward Arlington Robinson would win the poetry award.
And in the category of historical writing, most expected that Charles Beard would win for his Rise of American Civilization. So it came as a surprise that on May 8, 1928, UW English professor Vernon Louis Parrington received an official telegram from the Pulitzer Prize Committee announcing that he had won the historical writing award for his two-volume work, Main Currents in American Thought. Not only that, but he also had been awarded the largest literature prize: $2,000, or twice the amount the other winners received.
Two volumes of Main Currents had been published in 1927. The first volume, The Colonial Mind, 1620-1800, treated such figures as Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Tom Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. The second volume, The Romantic Revolution in America, 1800-1860, traced the "optimistic and restless mood of the country eager for land and new opportunities, epitomized by Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln." A third volume, later published posthumously and entitled The Beginnings of Critical...
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