Richard Hofstadter facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Richard Hofstadter
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Hofstadter circa 1970
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| Born | August 6, 1916 |
| Died | October 24, 1970 (aged 54) New York City, New York, US
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Notable work
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| Awards | Pulitzer Prize (1956; 1964) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Doctoral advisor | Merle Curti |
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| Influences | |
| Influenced |
Robert Dallek
Eric Foner Christopher Hitchens Susan Jacoby Christopher Lasch David W. Noble David M. Potter Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Mike Wallace C. Vann Woodward Howard Zinn |
Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916 – October 24, 1970) was an American historian. He was a well-known thinker in the middle of the 20th century.
Hofstadter taught American History at Columbia University. Early in his career, he looked at history through the lens of how money and power shaped events. Later, he explored the idea of "consensus history". This meant looking at how different groups in America often agreed on basic ideas, even when they seemed to be fighting. Some people saw him as a key historian of the time after World War II.
His most famous books include Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944) and The American Political Tradition (1948). Other important works are The Age of Reform (1955), Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), and a collection of essays called The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964).
He won the Pulitzer Prize twice. First, in 1956, for The Age of Reform. This book looked at the populist movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 1900s. He won again in 1964 for Anti-intellectualism in American Life, which explored cultural history. He was also a member of important academic groups like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Contents
Richard Hofstadter's Early Life
Hofstadter was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916. His father was Jewish, and his mother was German-American and Lutheran. His mother passed away when he was ten years old.
He went to Fosdick-Masten Park High School in Buffalo. Later, he studied philosophy and history at the University at Buffalo starting in 1933. There, he learned from the historian Julius W. Pratt.
In 1936, he married Felice Swados. They had one child named Dan. Richard was raised in the Anglican church but later felt more connected to his Jewish background.
In 1936, Hofstadter began his PhD in history at Columbia University. His advisor, Merle Curti, taught him how to combine ideas from intellectual, social, and political history.
In 1938, he briefly joined the Communist Party. However, he quickly became unhappy with the strict rules and unfair trials happening at the time. He left the party in 1939. Even after leaving, he kept a critical view of society from a left-wing perspective.
Hofstadter earned his PhD in 1942. In 1944, he published his main research paper, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915. This book was very popular. It looked at American business in the late 1800s. It criticized the idea of "dog-eat-dog" competition and how some people used Social Darwinism to justify it.
From 1942 to 1946, Hofstadter taught history at the University of Maryland. There, he became good friends with sociologist C. Wright Mills. He also read a lot about sociology and psychology. He learned ideas from thinkers like Max Weber and Sigmund Freud. His later books often talked about human behavior, like "status anxiety."
Understanding His Historical Ideas
In 1946, Hofstadter joined Columbia University. By 1959, he became a top professor of American History. He helped many students with their PhD research.
After 1945, Hofstadter's views changed. He moved away from the idea that American history was only about conflicts between different economic groups. He became known as a "consensus historian." This term meant he believed that, despite disagreements, Americans often shared common values and beliefs. Hofstadter himself didn't like this label, though.
Historian Christopher Lasch later said that Hofstadter saw this agreement among classes as a weakness. He thought it showed a lack of new ideas. Hofstadter believed it reflected how American political thought was too focused on popular myths.
In his book The American Political Tradition (1948), Hofstadter looked at politics from a left-wing viewpoint. But he avoided seeing politicians as simply "pro-business" or "anti-business." He thought that most of American history, except for the Civil War, could be understood by looking at shared beliefs. These beliefs existed even among groups that were in conflict.
In 1948, he published The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. This book studied 12 important American political leaders. The book was very popular and sold nearly a million copies. It was used as a textbook in universities. Critics found it "skeptical, fresh, and occasionally ironical." Each chapter title showed a surprising idea. For example, Thomas Jefferson was called "The Aristocrat as Democrat."
Later Works and Ideas
Hofstadter's important work used ideas from social psychology to explain political history. He looked at hidden reasons for people's actions. These included worries about social status, being against educated people, and paranoia. He showed how these feelings could drive political discussions and actions.
The Rural Ethos
His book The Age of Reform (1955) looked at the idea of the "yeoman" farmer. This was a romantic view of farming life in America. It suggested that farms were morally better than cities. Hofstadter, who lived in a big city, noted that this farming idea was a way Americans honored their imagined simple beginnings. He explained that even if it was a myth, it showed the strong rural values of Americans. These values deeply shaped how people saw right and wrong, and how they acted in politics.
His books Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963) and The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1965) talked about American provincialism. This is a narrow way of thinking, often seen in rural areas. He warned against being against educated people. He also warned against fearing the city, which was sometimes shown as evil by groups like the Populists in the 1890s. He connected the Populists to later anti-communist movements. He showed how political paranoia, like that seen during McCarthyism, had roots in these earlier fears.
Irrational Fear
The Idea of a Party System (1969) described how America's first political parties formed. It showed how people feared that the other party would destroy the country. The Progressive Historians (1968) looked at and criticized the ideas of historian Charles A. Beard. This book showed Hofstadter's growing leanings toward more conservative views.
Historians Howe and Finn noted that Hofstadter often used ideas from literature and psychology in his writing. He used terms like "irony," "myth," and "paranoid." They believed his goal was to challenge some old American traditions and myths. He thought these myths were not helpful guides for the present. Hofstadter argued that looking at psychology in politics, though tricky, helps us see that politics can be a place for feelings that are not directly related to the main issues.
Historian C. Vann Woodward said that Hofstadter seemed to understand "the odd, the warped, the 'zanies' and the crazies of American life."
Richard Hofstadter's Political Views
When he was in college, Hofstadter was influenced by his wife and joined the Young Communist League. In April 1938, he joined the Communist Party of the USA. He left in 1939. He had been hesitant to join because he knew the party told intellectuals what to believe. He was disappointed by the unfair trials in Moscow. He wrote that he joined "without enthusiasm but with a sense of obligation." He added that his main reason was that he "didn't like capitalism." He remained against capitalism but was also unhappy with Stalinism. He found the Soviet Union "undemocratic."
In the 1940s, Hofstadter stopped being involved in political causes. He felt that intellectuals would not find a comfortable place under socialism or capitalism.
Historian Susan Baker wrote that Hofstadter was deeply shaped by the political left of the 1930s. She said that the ideas of Marxism were very strong during his early years. This period helped shape his view of America's past.
Geary concluded that for Hofstadter, being a radical was more about thinking critically than about political action. Even though he quickly became unhappy with the Communist Party, he kept an independent left-wing view into the 1940s. His first two books, Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) and The American Political Tradition (1948), had a radical viewpoint.
In the 1940s, Hofstadter said that historian Charles A. Beard was a "very exciting influence." Hofstadter liked Beard's idea that U.S. history was a struggle between different economic groups. Beard encouraged historians to look for the hidden financial goals of people in power.
By the 1950s and 1960s, Hofstadter was well-respected among liberal thinkers. Lawrence Cremin wrote that Hofstadter's main goal in writing history was to update American liberalism. He wanted it to stand strong against attacks from both the left and the right.
In 2008, conservative writer George Will called Hofstadter "the iconic public intellectual of liberal condescension." Will said Hofstadter "dismissed conservatives as victims of character flaws and psychological disorders."
Later Life and Legacy
Hofstadter was upset by the radical politics of the 1960s. He was especially bothered by the student protests at Columbia University in 1968. He began to criticize how student activists acted. His friend David Herbert Donald said Hofstadter was "appalled by the growing radical, even revolutionary, sentiment." Hofstadter thought the students were "simple-minded, moralistic, ruthless, and destructive." He believed their actions were based on emotional ideas, not sensible plans. He also felt they harmed the university's special role as a place for free thought.
Even though he disagreed with their methods, he invited his radical students to talk with him. He even hired one student, Mike Wallace, to work with him on a book called American Violence: A Documentary History (1970).
Hofstadter planned to write a three-volume history of American society. However, he only finished the first volume, America at 1750: A Social Portrait (1971), before he passed away.
Death and Impact
Hofstadter died from leukemia on October 24, 1970, in Manhattan. He was 54 years old.
Hofstadter was more interested in his research than in teaching. In his undergraduate classes, he would read parts of his next book aloud. As a senior professor, Hofstadter guided over 100 student research papers. He gave his graduate students a lot of freedom. He believed this helped them find their own ways to study history. Some of his students became famous historians themselves, like Eric Foner and Linda Kerber. Hofstadter did not create a specific "school" of history writing.
After Hofstadter's death, Columbia University dedicated a special bookcase of his works to him.
Published Works
- "The Tariff Issue on the Eve of the Civil War," The American Historical Review Vol. 44, No. 1 (Oct. 1938), pp. 50–55 full text in JSTOR
- "William Graham Sumner, Social Darwinist," The New England Quarterly Vol. 14, No. 3 (Sep. 1941), pp. 457–77 online at JSTOR
- "Parrington and the Jeffersonian Tradition," Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 2, No. 4 (Oct. 1941), pp. 391–400 JSTOR
- "William Leggett, Spokesman of Jacksonian Democracy," Political Science Quarterly Vol. 58, No. 4 (Dec. 1943), pp. 581–94 JSTOR
- Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944). online
- The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1948). online
- "Beard and the Constitution: The History of an Idea," American Quarterly (1950) 2#3 pp. 195–213 JSTOR
- The Age of Reform: from Bryan to FDR (New York: Knopf, 1955). online
- The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955) with Walter P. Metzger online
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- Hofstadter's contribution was published separately as Academic Freedom in the Age of the College, Columbia University Press, [1955] 1961.
- The United States: the History of a Republic (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1957), college textbook; several editions; coauthored with Daniel Aaron and William Miller
- Anti-intellectualism in American Life (New York: Knopf, 1963). online
- The Progressive Movement, 1900–1915 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963). edited excerpts.
- Hofstadter, Richard (October 8, 1964). "A Long View: Goldwater in History". New York Review of Books. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/10/08/a-long-view-goldwater-in-history/.
- The Paranoid Style in American Politics, and Other Essays (New York: Knopf, 1965). ISBN: 978-0-226-34817-9 online
- includes "The Paranoid Style in American Politics", Harper's Magazine (1964)
- The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (New York: Knopf, 1968) online.
- The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). online
- American Violence: A Documentary History, co-edited with Mike Wallace (1970) ISBN: 978-0-394-41486-7
- "America As A Gun Culture" American Heritage, 21 (October 1970), 4–10, 82–85.
- America at 1750: A Social Portrait (1971)
Images for kids
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Hofstadter circa 1970
