In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820

by David Waldstreicher

In this innovative study, David Waldstreicher investigates the importance of political festivals in the early American republic. Drawing on newspapers, broadsides, diaries, and letters, he shows how patriotic celebrations and their reproduction in a rapidly expanding print culture helped connect local politics to national identity. Waldstreicher reveals how Americans worked out their political differences in creating a festive calendar. Using the Fourth of July as a model, members of different political parties and social movements invented new holidays celebrating such events as the ratification of the Constitution, Washington's birthday, Jefferson's inauguration, and the end of the slave trade. They used these politicized rituals, he argues, to build constituencies and to make political arguments on a national scale. While these celebrations enabled nonvoters to participate intimately in the political process and helped dissenters forge effective means of protest, they had their limits as vehicles of democratization or modes of citizenship, Waldstreicher says. Exploring the interplay of region, race, class, and gender in the development of a national identity, he demonstrates that an acknowledgment of the diversity and conflict inherent in the process is crucial to any understanding of American politics and culture.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, United States, Grad School

384 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1997

About the author

David Waldstreicher, editor, is Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and the author of Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (2009); Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (2004); and In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (1997). As editor, his books include A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams (2013).

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, this was a labor to read. Its prose is thick, densely layered with bevies of “isms”, reams of opaque evidence, and a concerning number of apostrophe-related copy-editing errors. If you have the fortitude to muscle through the cumbrous prose, you are very occasionally rewarded with a nugget of insight into the rich field of celebratory nationalist politicking that Waldstreicher explores. I would have appreciated him clearing the path a little wider though.

[Pádraig Lawlor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820," David Waldstreicher analyzes the growth of American nationalism and examines how such developments influenced politics in early American history. In contrast to most studies published since the fall of the Soviet Union, Waldstreicher's focus on nationalism differentiates itself by focusing on the interaction between nationalism and politics. Indeed, the complexities of this dual foci remain heavily contested amidst the relatively recent theoretical investigations of print, publicity and nation by Benedict Anderson, Etienne Balibar, Jürgen Habermas, and Michael Warner. In response to such studies, Waldstreicher's treats national loyalty not as an independent force in history, but alternatively as a set of cultural practices used flexibly by many diverse groups for distinctive purposes. Drawing on newspapers, broadsides, diaries, and letters, he demonstrates how patriotic celebrations and their reproduction in an expanding print culture helped connect local politics to national identity. Furthermore, Waldstreicher exposes how Americans worked out their political disparities in creating a festive calendar. He portrays American groups not only celebrating holidays, but reinventing them to achieve a variety of goals that went far beyond public commemoration and celebration.
Two interrelated areas of analyses drive Waldstreicher's study. First, by anchoring his case on the Fourth of July celebrations, he explores patriotic celebrations and their place in promoting national unity. In the early republic, he argues, parades and festivities played a key role in generating substantive debates on national issues. Moreover, it mobilized a popular and partisan electorate at the local level. What is significant for Waldstreicher is not, however, the occurrence of such festivities. Rather, it is the motives for and consequences of national celebrations. They allowed for the expression and debate of political ideas in a popular setting, outside the doors of government and in direct contact with the people. In this comprehensive view, the history of nationalism owes much to the creation of rituals, public enactments that conveyed a sense of solidarity while they simultaneously contained and defused social and economic tensions. With this, Waldstreicher moves to his second area of analysis by shifting to a refining overview of how patriotic celebrations affected sociological constructs.
He probes the interplay of region, race, class, and gender in the development of a national identity. He expresses that an acknowledgment of the diversity and conflict inherent in the process is crucial to any understanding of American politics and culture. Likewise, he posits that while politicized celebrations drew most white men into a public culture that was both national and local, such revelries simultaneously excluded others. Influenced by the work of students of American and French republicanism, Waldstreicher observes that white women were represented, though not truly included, in the public sphere. Their actual or figurative presence symbolized the nation's unity and virtue, rather than their own citizenship. Furthermore, African Americans, by contrast, were purposefully prohibited from nationalist celebrations. He explains how blacks constructed their own civic calendar and celebratory rituals and in so doing "invented the African nation out of the borrowed tools of [white] nationalist political culture" (p. 347).
Simply stated, Waldstreicher's ideological and politically driven arguments are persuasively disputed. Employing rich primary material such as newspapers from 1776-1820, Waldstreicher successfully completes the task he set for himself: arguing how the rise of American nationalism simultaneously transpired with the emergence of political divisions. His focus on national rites and their embellishment in print provides context for discussions involving party formation and conflict. Moreover, such a study prompts debate regarding the role of class in the development of nationalism, the impact of sectionalism on nationalist rhetoric, and the relationship between groups without political power. Like the work of Jay Fliegelman and Shirley Samuels, Waldstreicher's study conveys the overlapping discourses of politics and family that ultimately complicate traditional understanding of public and private spheres. What separates his work from such scholars is his contention that public culture must be understood as a "middle ground," accounting for "the relationship between local and national publics, and the crystallization of those relations in celebrations and celebratory publicity" (p. 219). Although dense and complex at times, Waldstreicher's efforts are most appreciated. It raises further questions concerning the elaboration of the mechanisms of ideological production in the early American Republic. Thus, Waldstreicher's analysis is best suited for those cultural and political historians entrenched in analytical and theoretical modes of discourse.

[Kelli Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820, by David Waldstreicher describes how American identity, nationalism, and partisanship was shaped by celebrations in the half-century following the American Revolution. Parades, feasts, and toasts at Fourth of July celebrations and other new national holidays created a space for leaders and citizens to express their partisan views and create a national identity. As political parties and regional interests developed, these celebrations became increasingly partisan, but maintained an air of nationality. This allowed for the simultaneous expression of local partisanship and national American identity. The use of toasts at these celebrations acutely demonstrates the ability of attendees and citizens readings the toasts in print to express their partisan nationalism and contributed to the development of American identity.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Waldstreicher’s book, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism 1777-1820, is centered around the idea that patriotic celebrations, like the 4th of July were used to create a national identity. In 1776, the former colonies were united by very little, and a great deal of local politics threatened to fragment the new republic. Local politics were able to be brought together rapidly due to the print culture. Walkdstreicher uses many newspapers, letters, and diaries to prove his point.
As the new republic formed, Waldstreicher argues that a set of national celebrations quickly became popular topics in the press to create a sense of common purpose. The goal of these celebrations was to unify people of different race, class, gender, and state under the ideals of the Revolution. This growth in nationalist ideas became a set of cultural practices that could be used by many diverse groups for multiple purposes. Waldstreicher highlights how different political groups were able to achieve different goals that went much deeper than the celebrations themselves. Waldstreicher highlights the importance of events, like the Fourth of July, for creating an environment for expression and for political ideas to thrive in a popular setting. Political thought and ideals grew not in a government building but in town commons directly with the public.
One area where Waldstreicher raised a deeply interesting point was as he dove into the complexity of the region, race, class, and gender of the people who participated in these celebrations. By looking at both who did and did not participate in national celebrations Waldstreicher touches upon another fascinating idea. Not only was a national identity being formed at these events but the US was also figuring out what it took to be a citizen. The growth of the definition of citizen is a topic Waldstreicher touches on here, but his research could provide a much deeper look into this fascinating idea. He points out how these celebrations drew mainly white men into the public eye while excluding others. A deeper look into how women were at these events but not included in the public sphere is needed here. Waldstreicher points out how white women’s figures were used to symbolize the nation's unity and virtue, but they were not included in the discussion of citizenship.
Waldstreicher also points out how African Americans were banned from nationalist celebrations. He also argues that being excluded from such events led to African Americans creating their civic calendar and celebrations, "invented the African nation out of the borrowed tools of [white] nationalist political culture." This argument is one of his most compelling in the book and needs to be explored more. Waldstreicher has provided a fascinating look here into both the growth of the concept of citizenship in the early republic and the origins of African American culture. Both of these ideas deserve a book to themselves.
Waldstreicher puts out a compelling argument for American nationalism but does little to address the rapid change in nationalism across the Atlantic world or explain the role these other events would have had on what was happening in America. America was not the only nation at this time that was struggling with developing a self-identity, and the growth of that idea would have undoubtedly been influenced by the Latin American revolutions, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic era. Waldstreicher mentions French and British nationalism on page eight by saying, “The new reality of the age was much more than the idea of the nation: it was the new political practices justified in the name of the nation and its people.” He then goes on to explain how celebrations like the Fourth of July were unique because they “demonstrated their joy or sorrow in a wide range of political events and anniversaries.” Here, Waldstreicher fails to explain how this is that different than the French creation of an identity after the French Revolution with events like Bastille Day, which was made a national holiday in 1790, or the construction of the Arc de Triomphe in 1806. Is nationalism like this really that different than what was taking place in the US?
An update to this argument could be made as well. Using works like The Common Cause by Robert Parkinson who argues a similar thesis to Waldstreicher but takes it back further. Parkinson’s main thesis centers on how newspapers were used to create a national identity by separating certain groups as “the other” during the American Revolution. He writes an engaging argument structured around the creation of the concept of citizenship based on the exclusion of particular groups to develop a national identity during the American Revolution. Just like Waldstreicher, Parkinson takes a deep dive into the local newspaper's role in the national identity. Combining these two books to make a concise narrative could provide great insight to both
Waldstreicher’s expert use of his sources creates a strong argument for American nationalism and the growth of national ideas at the local level. The book does a great job of taking a look into the origins of early American Nationalism. His argument could be strengthened by a better look at how this is different than what was happening in other revolutions at the time or by an addition to the work done by historians like Parkinson, who argue these ideas started earlier.

[Annika]

Read for my monuments and memorials project for my history methods class

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waldstreicher covers the development of American nationalism during the early republic, but he does so not by examining nationalist ideology. Instead, he looks at the culture of public ritual and celebration of nationalism to get a sense of how early Americans practiced, utilized, and sometimes co-opted nationalism. He believes that this perspective gives us a much less abstract and more grounded view of early American nationalism.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed with this book. For a book about the everyday practice and celebration of nationalism, it still featured a lot of dense language and was slow in many places. I found myself saying "so what" to a great deal of the book, which dealt with individual cases and seemingly minor details. Clunky terms like extralocal, translocal, problematic as a noun, aver, technology of nationalism, self-presentation of persons, emendation, and plenty of nominalizations clutter the book. At one point, he clarifies that sight "is the sensory experience of seeing."Still, there are some very interesting points that deserve recognition.

First, Waldstreicher contends that there really was no such thing as a non-partisan nationalist celebration. Everyone acted as if the celebration was a simple expression of nationalism, but he shows that different factions were usually claiming the ceremony as their own and contending that they properly represented the popular will. Nevertheless, in practicing nationalism, even in a partisan way, Americans helped create a national identity even though the nation-state may not have existed yet. To celebrate America, you must have an idea of America. Still, celebrations served some purpose in creating a myth of consensus that could grow into a partial reality. People could be divided by party and region but still united as a nation, although there were certainly pitfalls lurking here. The same process could happen with regionalism, in which the 3 main regions of America claimed membership in the nation but also that their particular form of celebratory nationalism represented the nation better than the other regions.

Second, he discusses an interesting feedback loop between celebrations and the papers. The papers would report on the celebrations to larger regions or even the entire country. This helped standardize the rites and rituals of patriotism in early America. One can see this in the relatively regular toasting ceremonies in which one had to do a toast for each state, although partisan divides sometimes made people leave certain states out.

The most interesting chapter was the final one on nationalism and race. Whites, especially Federalists, had long used the presence of blacks at rival parties' celebrations as signs of their moral dissolution. Rather than identifying themselves as non-Americans, free blacks asserted their membership in the nation by appropriating nationalist ceremonies and symbols. They used the forms but altered the content to put forth their political views. They simultaneously called out the young nation for not living up to its founding ideals by their very presence in public ceremonies. Even slave revolts were often timed to national holidays, possibly to highlight the contrast between the slaves' condition and the values celebrated in those holidays. In this process, free blacks formed a hybrid black and American nationalism. Sometimes they turned rituals of celebration into rituals of mourning to challenge racism and slavery. Many whites mocked these public displays of nationalism and inclusion with racist "bobalition" tracts, but even these tracts implicitly acknowledged that free blacks understood the gap between their condition and basic American values.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding story of how public celebrations meant to inspire national unity (and, for the Federalists, advance their elite republican mentality over the marginally more democratic Anti-Federalists/Republicans) changed the political discourse. Pretty soon, any and all factions were using national celebrations and festivals to argue that their particular ideology was the correct way to interpret the American Revolution. Eventually, African Americans and other dissidents began using fetes to argue that they too deserved a place at the American table. A bit dense to read, the book is repetitive in the best sense, using more and more case studies to reiterate, explain, and complicate the central thesis.

[Kaylee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure I'm meant to be getting more out of this book than the following, but here's what strikes me at 62 [interminable] pages in:

- Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated for years in America, but under the pseudonym of "Gunpowder Day".
- People have always been good at puns. Ie, "marvelous Whorator".
- Americans have always tried to create their own culture but can't so they just write stories about ideal futures and pasts.

Upon finishing, I can definitely say I learned a little, but on the whole found the book to be incredibly dry. There are ways to present history that make it fun and exciting (which it really is!), but Waldstreicher doesn't manage to do that.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's some brilliant work here, but much of it is not presented clearly. This book could have had a much wider audience -- and that would have been a good thing. (More review to come when I get the chance.)

[Mark Cheathem · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book that reqires intellectual wrestling. Not an easy read but worth the time.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars