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Pioneering American Studies: Ten Years of the Bulletin, 1956–1966
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 August 2008
Abstract
The Bulletin of the British Association for American Studies (1956–66) provided a valuable platform for many British pioneers in the study of American history, politics and literature, and laid the ground for a more professional and permanent American studies journal when the field had become well established in this country. Here I have both attempted to analyse the Bulletin's content and commented on the professional background and intellectual interest of its contributors, including the very limited number of women whose work appeared in its pages.
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References
1 Bulletin of the British Association for American Studies (hereafter Bulletin), 1 (April 1956), 4–5.
2 Bulletin, 5 (Sept. 1957), 3.
3 Bulletin, 5 (Sept. 1957), 3–8.
4 Bulletin, 6 (Feb. 1958), 8–12; 7 (Aug. 1958), 3–7; 8 (Feb. 1959), 29–41; 9 (Nov. 1959), 18–20.
5 See Bulletin, 6 (Feb. 1958), 2 for a typical appeal for contributors. Membership at the end of 1956 was about 120. Bulletin, 3 (Dec. 1956), 1.
6 Bulletin, 4 (April 1957), 3. Film received no attention, though the National Film Archive was publicized. See Bulletin, 6 (Feb. 1958), 16.
7 The early Bulletins are replete with reports of the teaching of American subjects, especially history and literature, in British universities. The issue for July 1956 contains a directory of members and their American studies interests. Later issues contained similar reports on new members until the appearance of the Newsletter.
8 Bulletin, 3 (Dec. 1956), 2–4; 4 (April 1957), 19–22; 5 (Sept. 1957), 29–31; 6 (Feb. 1958), 17–19; 7 (Aug. 1959), 27; Bernard Crick and Miriam Alman, Guide to Manuscripts Relating to America in Great Britain and Ireland (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). Long addenda lists appeared in Bulletin, NS, 5, 7 and 12/13.
9 Bulletin, 7 (Aug. 1958); D. K. Adams, American Newspaper Holdings in British and Irish Libraries (Keele: David Bruce Centre, 1974).
10 Bulletin, NS, 5 (Dec. 1962), 75.
11 Bulletin, 5 (Sept. 1957), 2.
12 Bulletin, 8 (Feb. 1959), 2–3.
13 Rowe, John, “Cornish Emigrants and America,” Bulletin, 8 (Feb. 1959), 4–11Google Scholar. Rowe's later The Hard Rock Men: Cornish Immigrants of the North American Mining Frontier (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1974) is more judicious. For early criticism of the use of published letters see Charlotte Erickson, “Immigration Studies,” Bulletin, NS, 4 (Aug. 1962), 52–55.
14 Conway, Alan, “Welsh Emigration to America,” Bulletin, 8 (Feb. 1959), 11–18Google Scholar; idem, The Welsh in America: Letters from Immigrants (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1961).
15 Green, E. R. R., “The Irish in America,” Bulletin, 8 (Feb. 1958), 19–25Google Scholar; idem, ed., Essays in Scotch-Irish History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969).
16 Taylor, Philip, “Recent Writings on Utah and the Mormons,” Bulletin, 9 (Nov. 1959), 12–17Google Scholar; P. A. M. Taylor, Expectations Westward: The Mormons and the Emigration of Their British Converts in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965); Philip Taylor, The Distant Magnet: European Emigration to the USA (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971).
17 McKay, Johnston R., “An American Evangelist in Great Britain,” Bulletin, 6 (Feb. 1958), 3–8Google Scholar; Billington, Louis, “The Millerite Adventists in Great Britain, 1840–50,” Journal of American Studies, 1 (Oct. 1967), 191–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “The Churches of Christ in Britain: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Sectarianism,” Journal of Religious History, 8 (1974), 21–48; Richard Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism: Popular Evangelicalism in Britain and America, 1790–1865 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978). Pioneering British scholars of American revivalism and sectarianism were very much influenced by such American classics as Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1950), which remains indispensable in its field.
18 Shepperson, George, “Confederate Sympathisers in the British Working Class,” Bulletin, 5 (Sept. 1957), 11–14Google Scholar; idem, “More on Confederate Sympathisers in Britain,” Bulletin, 6 (Feb. 1958), 13; idem, “Glasgow Confederates: Even More on Confederate sympathisers,” Bulletin, 6 (Feb. 1958), 16; Mary Ellison, Support for Secession: Lancashire and the American Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972).
19 Franklin, John Hope, “The Intercontinental Implications of American Negro History,” Bulletin, 9 (Nov. 1959), 25–28Google Scholar. See also Shepperson's review of Franklin's Reconstruction after the Civil War in Bulletin, NS, 6 (June 1963), 70–72.
20 Wall, Joseph F., “Recalling the Laird of Skibo,” Bulletin, 5 (Sept. 1957), 9–10Google Scholar; “Visiting Fulbright Lecturers and Scholars 1958–9,” Bulletin, 7 (Aug. 1958), 28.
21 Dearden, James F., “John Howard Whitehouse and Anglo-American Understanding,” Bulletin, 7 (Aug. 1958), 23–27Google Scholar; Alt, Anthony H., “The Bruern Foundation Awards,” Bulletin, 9 (Nov. 1959), 34–36Google Scholar; C. P. Hill, “American Education,” Bulletin, NS, 3 (Dec. 1961), 70; C. L. Mowat, “A Study of Bias in British and American History Textbooks,” Bulletin, NS, 10 (June 1965), 31–39.
22 Spiller, Robert E., “American Literature in British Universities,” Bulletin, 9 (Nov. 1959), 21–23Google Scholar, quotation on 22.
23 Moore, Geoffrey, “The Teaching of American Literature in Britain,” Bulletin, 7 (Aug. 1958), 29–35Google Scholar.
24 Daniels, Howell, “Henry James and an International Incident,” Bulletin, NS, 1 (Sept. 1960), 3–32Google Scholar; Tarrant, Desmond, “James Branch Caball: A Reappraisal,” Bulletin, 7 (Aug. 1958), 37–45Google Scholar.
25 Shepperson, George, “Editorial Note,” Bulletin, 9 (Nov. 1959), 1–2Google Scholar.
26 Dennis Welland, “Editorial,” Bulletin, NS, 12/13 (1966), 3.
27 Bulletin, NS, 1 (Sept. 1960), 2.
28 See, for example, Geoffrey Seed, “British Introductions to American History,” Bulletin, NS, 3 (Dec. 1961), 49–52; Brian Lee, “Some British Studies of American Literature,” Ibid., 56–63.
29 Gold, Joseph, “The Morality of Lolita,” Bulletin, NS, 1 (Sept. 1960), 50–54Google Scholar.
30 Taylor, Clare, “Notes on American Negro Reformers in Victorian Britain,” Bulletin, NS, 2 (March 1961), 40–51Google Scholar; Clare Taylor, British and American Abolitionists: An Episode in Transatlantic Understanding (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1974). Among George Shepperson's pioneering publications on Scottish-American abolitionism, the following remain important: Shepperson, George, “The Free Church and American Slavery,” Scottish Historical Review, 30 (1951–52), 126–43Google Scholar and idem, “Frederick Douglass and Scotland,” Journal of Negro History, 38 (1953), 307–21.
31 Wall, Joseph F., “‘Where the Difference between the Thames and the Atlantic?’,” Bulletin, NS, 2 (March 1961), 52–55Google Scholar; Frank Thistlethwaite, The Anglo-American Connection in the Early Nineteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1959).
32 In addition to Clare Taylor's book, cited above among important early works on abolitionism by British scholars, are Christine Bolt, The Anti-slavery Movement and Reconstruction: A Study in Anglo-American Co-operation, 1837–77 (London: Oxford University Press, 1969); C. Duncan Rice, “The Scottish Factor in the Fight against American Slavery” (Ph.D. dissertation, Edinburgh University, 1969), later published in a revised form as The Scots Abolitionists 1833–1861 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981); Howard Temperley, British Anti-slavery 1833–1870 (London: Longman, 1972). Other Anglo-American social reform movements received less attention during the early years of American studies, but some of the links between British and American revivalists and temperance reformers are explored in Louis Billington, “Popular Religion and Social Reform: A Study of Revivalism and Teetotalism,” Journal of Religious History, 10 (1978–79), 266–93. This paper is an extension of work published earlier on Anglo-American sectarianism.
33 Crook, D. P., “The British Whigs on America: 1820–1860,” Bulletin, NS, 3 (Dec. 1961), 4–17Google Scholar. Crook was a postgraduate student who later published American Democracy in British Politics, 1815–1860 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). “The Impact of American Democracy upon Great Britain” was the subtitle of G. D. Lillibridge's Beacon of Freedom (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1955), which, though less influential than Frank Thistlethwaite's Anglo-American Connection, helped to stimulate research in its field. Perhaps the most influential work in the area by a British scholar was Henry Pelling, America and the British Left: From Bright to Bevan (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1956). Pelling, an already established scholar, was a very early member of the association. See Bulletin, 3 (Dec. 1966), Supplement, 12.
34 McCowan, Archibald, “Five Months in a Rebel Prison,” Bulletin, NS, 3 (Dec. 1961), 18–24Google Scholar.
35 Welland, Dennis, “Editorial,” Bulletin, NS, 4 (Aug. 1962), 2Google Scholar. Dennis Welland's role in the Bulletin and his contribution to American Studies are outlined in his obituary, written by Peter Marshall, published in American Studies in Britain: Newsletter of the British Association for American Studies, 88 (Spring 2003), 21–22. Marshall himself published and reviewed in the Bulletin and went on to become professor of American history at the University of Manchester and a colleague of Dennis Welland.
36 Pear, R. H., “The Impact of the New Deal on British Economic and Political Ideas,” Bulletin, NS, 4 (Aug. 1962), 17–28Google Scholar; Malcolm Bradbury and F. W. Cook, “Whose Hero? A Reading of Wallace Steven's ‘Bantam in Pine Woods’,” Ibid., 36–41.
37 Erickson, Charlotte, “Immigration Studies,” Bulletin, NS, 4 (Aug. 1962), 52–55Google Scholar. Charlotte Erickson had already published American Industry and the European Immigrant, 1860–1885 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), which was reviewed in the Bulletin, 7 (Aug. 1958), 50. She was soon working on Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century America (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972). Jones, Maldwyn, “More about Migration,” Bulletin, NS, 6 (June 1963), 50–57Google Scholar. He had already published American Immigrants (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957).
38 Dennis Welland, review of James Woodress, ed., Dissertations in American Literature 1891–1955 with Supplement 1955–61 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1962), Bulletin, NS, 5 (Dec. 1962), 101–02.
39 Eric Mottram, “Heroes, Innocents and Victims in American Fiction,” Bulletin, NS, 5 (Dec. 1962), 89–93.
40 Harry Allan and John Hawgood were on the first committee of the BAAS and Allan went on to become chair. Both already held university chairs in the mid-1950s and wrote and taught extensively on American history.
41 Jensen, Merrill, “A B.A.A.S. Publication,” Bulletin, NS, 5 (Dec. 1962), 77–80Google Scholar; Crick, B. R., “First List of Addenda to a Guide to Manuscripts Relating to America in Great Britain and Ireland,” Bulletin, NS, 5 (Dec. 1962), 47–63Google Scholar; “A Second List of Addenda to a Guide to Manuscripts Relating to America in Great Britain and Ireland,” Bulletin, NS, 7 (Dec. 1963), 55–65; “Third List of Addenda to a Guide to Manuscripts Relating to America in Great Britain and Ireland,” Bulletin, NS, 12/13 (1966), 61–71.
42 For Encounter see, for example, the obituary of Melvin Lasky, The Times, 21 May 2004.
43 Adams, David K., “Roosevelt and Kennedy,” Bulletin, NS, 7 (Dec. 1963), 29–39Google Scholar, quotation on 38.
44 Lees, John D., “The Implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Title VI and the Use of Federal Funds,” Bulletin, 11 (Dec. 1965), 16–32Google Scholar, quotation on 22.
45 Coats, A. W., “Education and Democracy: Reflections of the American Experience,” Bulletin, NS, 5 (Dec. 1962), 64–73Google Scholar.
46 Cunliffe, Marcus, “The Franklin Papers,” Bulletin, NS, 3 (Dec. 1961), 53Google Scholar.
47 Shepperson, George, “The American Negro and Africa,” Bulletin, NS, 6 (June 1964), 3–20Google Scholar.
48 Andrew Hook, “John Nichol, American Literature and Scottish Liberalism,” Bulletin, NS, 6 (June 1963), 20–30. Hook had just been appointed lecturer in American literature at the University of Edinburgh and went on to publish a revised version of his Princeton thesis as Scotland and America: A Study of Cultural Relations (Glasgow: Blackie, 1975).
49 Reinitz, Robert, “Perry Miller and Recent American Historiography,” Bulletin, NS, 8 (June 1964), 27–30Google Scholar. Sumner Chilton Powell, Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1963) was perhaps the first of a flood of socioeconomic interpretations of early New England communities by Kenneth A. Lockridge, Philip Greven and many other scholars.
50 Tanner, Tony, “Pigment and Ether: A Comment on the American Mind,” Bulletin, NS, 7 (Dec. 1963), 40–45Google Scholar.
51 Way, Brian, “Character and Society in The Adventures of Augie March,” Bulletin, NS, 8 (June 1964), 36–44Google Scholar; Avery, Christine, “Science, Technology and Emily Dickinson,” Bulletin, NS, 9 (Dec. 1964), 47–55Google Scholar; Rosenthal, T. G., “Studs Lonigan and the Search for an American Tragedy,” Bulletin, NS, 7 (Dec. 1963), 46–54Google Scholar.
52 Welland, Dennis, “Editorial,” Bulletin, NS, 9 (Dec. 1964), 3Google Scholar.
53 The growth of library holdings in Americana for one British university library after the formation of an American studies department in 1962 are outlined in Louis Billington, Guide to American Studies Collections in the Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull (Brynmor Jones Library, n.d.). Written in the mid-1990s, this pamphlet indicates the generous external and internal funding which assisted the growth of American studies collections. Peter Snow, The United States: A Guide to Library Holdings in the UK (London: British Library, 1982) outlines the national picture a decade earlier.
54 Hobsbaum, Philip, “The Critics at the Harmonium: Blackmur and Winters on Stevens,” Bulletin, NS, 11 (Dec. 1965), 43–57Google Scholar; Raban, Jonathan, “Versions of Immobility: The Contemporary American Writer and the Jewish Tradition,” Bulletin, NS, 12/13 (1966), 78–98Google Scholar; Dekker, G., “The Pathfinder: Leatherstocking in Love,” NS, 10 (June 1965), 40–47Google Scholar; Grieder, Theodore, “Joel Barlow's The Hasty Pudding: A Study in American Neo-classicism,” Bulletin, NS, 11 (Dec. 1965), 35–42Google Scholar.
55 Saul, S. B., “The New Economic History,” Bulletin, NS, 11 (Dec. 1965), 24–34Google Scholar. Professor Saul had been a member of the BAAS since 1957. Other economic historians active in the early history of the association, some of whom published in the Bulletin, included A. W. Coats and Jim Potter. Charlotte Erickson and Philip Taylor, distinguished historians of emigration, were among a larger group of scholars who by training were essentially economic historians.
56 Welland, Dennis, “Editorial,” Bulletin, NS, 12/13 (1966), 3Google Scholar.
57 Personal knowledge and biographical information on contributors and early members of the BAAS is provided in the Bulletin.
58 A good example of such a scholar, though others might be cited, is J. R. (Jack) Pole, who joined the association in 1957 when he was a lecturer in American history at University College, London. See Bulletin, 4 (April 1957), 25 and Ibid., 5 (Sept. 1957), 17. Jack Pole occasionally reviewed for the Bulletin, which noted his publication of major articles in other journals. These culminated in his Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1966), which was reviewed in the first issue of the Journal of American Studies, 1 (April 1967), 129–30.
59 Dennis Welland himself was a student and great admirer of Smith, but it was not until the development of new American studies departments that opportunities for interdisciplinary work began to grow. See Dennis Welland's obituary in American Studies in Britain: Newsletter of the British Association for American Studies, 88 (Spring 2003), 21.
60 Reports on the European Association for American Studies feature in the Bulletin from the first issue. In 1958 two members of the association called for a symposium on the “American Studies concept.” George Shepperson was not unsympathetic but thought that the proposal reflected a “more organic concept than it is at present in most British universities, colleges and schools.” Bulletin, 7 (Aug. 1958), 2.