Ben Hussmann Glenbrook South High School

Rude Republic is the first detailed historical monograph that I've read in some time, as since I've finished my Masters and moved along the salary schedule, my reading, assigned and chosen, has been more synthetic works addressing broad themes. And while those more literary and narrative works are more enjoyable to read than the dense evidence found in monographs, I enjoyed getting back to some "nuts and bolts" history. Each year I begin my history courses with a brief look at how historian's do their job, synthesizing vast amounts of primary source material in order to make inferences and judgments about the past. It was good to be reminded that before any sentence appears in my classroom textbook, historians have done enormous amounts of research. Knowledge is a social construct. We need to recognize how dependent we are on our forebears before we grow too pleased with our sense of having mastered the material.

In fact, I must say I was more impressed with Altschuler's and Blumin's methodology than I was with their thesis. Because of the pace of my Advanced Placement United States History course, I do not assign scholarly articles which detail methodology, using articles from American Heritage or American History instead. But I think the A.P. students would benefit much from reading a selection from Rude Republic in order to understand the complexity (and laboriousness) of historical scholarship. Consequently, I have decided to use the first ten pages of Chapter 3 which includes the authors' definition of political activism and how they would use newspapers from several communities to measure levels of activism. Why this section? It engendered the liveliest discussion in our colloquium in Bloomington. This section is an excellent example of how scholars conceptualize their question and then find a method to find answers to the research question. And because Altschuler's and Blumin's decisions here generated criticism and debate among the teachers, I hope it will do the same for my students.

The central thesis of Rude Republic is that the politics in the nineteenth century was not as "democratic" and participatory as is commonly understood or commonly taught. The common understanding of nineteenth century political participation is usually based on the dramatic increase in voting rates in the Age of Jackson and beyond, the use of campaign methods which appeal to the common man, and the rise of the nominating convention at the county, state and national levels. Altschuler and Blumin assert that these have been misrepresented and that "political activists" were actually only 15 to 25 percent of the male population.

I have three reactions to the foregoing. First, I think only a most simplistic understanding of politics and history would lead one to assert that the majority of the population invested its time and effort in continuous political activism. I think few teachers would argue this point. Second, revisionist views of nineteenth century political activism are not new. An article I frequently use in class is Benjamin Rader's [remaining text has been lost].

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