Arthur M. Shlesinner's Biography Of A Nation Of Joiners Analysis

In his Biography of a Nation of Joiners (1944), Arthur M. Schlesinger concluded that the drive to associate was an inherent and natural American attribute. His study traced the emergence of fraternal orders since the colonial period and contextualised their development towards the present day. Arguably however, many of the colonial associations witnessed neither nationwide membership nor did they show characteristics attributable to, or elementary of, civil society. For instance Schlesinger sources the Junto Club, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1727, as playing a prominent civic role in Philadelphia, yet its activities were confined solely to that state. Its provincial location, secretive arrangement and restrictive membership to only 12 of
Indeed these groups showed that people could play an active role in public life beyond that of simply the mob, however they naturally died after the Revolution, at which point existed very limited examples of civil society outside of Freemasonry, farmers guilds or gentlemen’s clubs. After achieving independence from Britain there is little historical evidence of Americans constantly engaging with civil society. This contrasts Schlesinger’s and also Tocqueville’s thesis that America had always been a nation of joiners. The problem with Schlesinger’s narrative, like many other cold war historians, is that they come across as static, failing to incorporate the ideals of the founding fathers who opposed the act of association
Alcohol was regarded as damaging capitalist enterprise as well as imperilling domestic tranquility and the national virtue. With just 400 local branches across the United States in 1828, the movement witness an exponential increase in membership by 1835, acquiring over 1.5 million members across 8,000 local branches. During the following decade, Americans in record numbers lobbied to end saloon licensing, flocked to temperance rallies and pledged sobriety. They backed the grassroots Washingtonian movement which, dedicated to total abstinence, sponsored public talks and parades. Washingtonians further provided institutions intent on keeping inebriates sober via moral suasion. With this newfound enthusiasm for temperance came better organised fellowships, such as the ‘Blue Ribbon societies’ and ‘Good Templars’. In 1850 president of the Temperance Society Maine state branch, Neal Dow was called upon by the legislature to draft a bill that would ban the manufacture and sale of hard liquor in Maine. A further ten states passed similar prohibitory legislation over the following five years. What’s more associations played a pivotal role in evolving anti-slavery sentiment into a mass movement dedicated to the immediate abolition of slavery. That in five years from inception, there existed over a thousand local anti-slavery societies with