A lesson learned from AMERICAN VISIONS, by Edward Ayers

 Humanity never changes, only our historical circumstances do.

          Sometimes the History books I read chronical fascinating historical characters and eras, and have lessons from the past that our modern society really needs to take to heart. Then there are times that I just read good, informative books that don’t really fit the format of my blog well, as it’s hard to take any such wrenching lessons away from them, and that’s the case with Edward Ayers’ American Visions. It’s a very well-written and readable book which is also very much a casual synopsis of the world of Antebellum America, and it jumps between dozens of different figures. As such, this is going to be a shorter post than my usual one, but there was one intriguing theme I stumbled on across the book—how much the debates that consumed 19^th century Americans weren’t all that different than the ones we have today, if you squint just enough.

            Ayers widely ignores prominent political leaders of the era, and instead focuses on its most famous writers and artists, which makes it a great read for anyone wanting an introduction to the prominent cultural commentators of antebellum America. Some of the era’s most legendary authors—Poe, Thoreau, Melville, etc.—were either widely ignored, or at the very least struggled enough financially that they were never comfortable in their own lifetimes. All those authors were united in being determined to offer dark and unique commentary on their eras, which made their writings much less palatable to antebellum audiences compared to the writers who were much more willing to indulge in the prejudices and sentimentality that ordinary readers wanted (do these facts sound familiar to any struggling writers and artists today?!).

            Intriguingly, Ayers also studies a lot of art that directly criticized what were considered the proper racial and general roles of that era, and faced intense backlash as a result. Antebellum audiences ate up “minstrel music” (“Oh Suzanna” anyone?) which celebrated the supposedly happy and contended lives of Southern slaves, but were much less receptive to the speeches of Frederick Douglass, who criticized how 4^th of July celebrations ignored all the ugly realities of life in a slave-owing nation. When people published marital guides that argued husbands should be willing to aid their wives in various household chores, they were condemned by reviewers who imagined the horror of men doing dishes and laundry. When people published sexual guides that argued birth control was a vital right for women and that sex should focus on pleasure for all involved, they were condemned and banned by censors who argued such sentiments would corrupt America’s youth (so much for these debates being new for our modern society).

            If there was a fun lesson to take away from Ayers’ book, it was in how relatable the people in it are, and how easy it is to imagine modern people being in the exact same situations. This is an historical fact that many forget when we study our long-gone ancestors—they were driven by the same idealistic, generous, petty, and selfish reasons that drive us all today.