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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2016
Colleagues hailed the Rutgers University historian Warren Susman as a pioneer in the field of cultural history and popular culture when he died in 1985 at the age of fifty-eight. Although well known, Susman had published just a handful of essays, a collection of which was published only the year before his death. Despite his reputation, this work was not widely reviewed and when it was, not uniformly positively. This essay explores the disjunction between his work and his reputation and, through an analysis of archival sources, including Susman's newly available personal papers, argues that Susman's importance lies less in his contributions to the field of cultural history than in his understanding of the relationship between historical work and the critical intellectual heritage of progressivism. The essay traces Susman's early professional career and historical work, including his unpublished doctoral study of expatriate intellectuals and his critical engagement with the legacy of the Progressive historians, and his mid-career efforts to join with other left scholars in establishing a new socialist party. Susman's career allows for the analysis and better understanding of the progressive tradition in historical scholarship, the changes in intellectual and cultural history in the 1960s, and the way historians have understood their role in social reform.
A version of this paper was presented at the Second Annual United States Intellectual History (now Society for US Intellectual History) Conference in 2009. My thanks to the following for providing advice and encouragement or responding to inquiries, even as they may not agree with my own conclusions: Dustin Abnet, Michael Adas, Rudolph Bell, Lloyd Gardner, Michael Lesy, David Oshinsky, Richard Pells, Leo Ribuffo, Joan Shelley Rubin, Sue Swartzlander, and Jeremy Young. Thanks also to Charles Capper and the anonymous reviewers for Modern Intellectual History. My thanks to Tom Frusciano and the staff of the Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers University for their assistance, particularly Erika Gorder and her students, whose preliminary cataloguing of the Susman Papers proved invaluable.
1 In Memory of Warren I. Susman, 1927–1985 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1986), 7, 11–12; Gardner, Lloyd, “Warren I. Susman, Rutgers University, Dies at Annual Meeting,” OAH Newsletter, 13/2 (1985), 6 Google Scholar; Furner, Mary, “Warren I. Susman (1927–1985),” History at Northern (Spring 1986), 11 Google Scholar; Fleming, Maria, “Popular, Dynamic, Rutgers History Professor Dies at 58,” Daily Targum, 23 April 1985 Google Scholar, 1. The latter three sources are available in the Obituaries Folder, Box 21, Warren I. Susman Papers, R-MC 118 (Special Collections and University Archives, Alexander Library, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ). The Susman Papers are only partially processed. The box and folder identifications provided reflect those in use in summer 2015. For evidence of Susman's chronic ill health, which dated to the 1950s, see Buhle, Paul, “Tuning in Warren Susman,” Voice Literary Supplement (April 1985), 20 Google Scholar; Merle Curti to Susman, 10 April 1981, Merle Curti Correspondence, 1973–95 folder, Box 4, Susman Papers; Susman to Curti, 13 Oct. 1955, Folder 5, Box 40, Merle Eugene Curti Papers, MSS 24 (Library-Archives Division, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin); Curti to Susman, 13 Jan. 1968, Folder 25; Curti to Susman, 22 May 1955, 19 Oct. 1955, Folder 26, Box 1, Susman Papers; Susman to Gates, 20 Sept. 1950, Folder 21, Box 22, Paul Wallace Gates Papers, #14-17-1403 (Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY); Susman to Christopher Lasch, [Dec. 1970], Folder 6, Box 3, Section 1: General Correspondence, Christopher Lasch Papers (Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York).
2 Lloyd Gardner to Paul Murphy, e-mail, 30 Aug. 2013.
3 Susman, Warren I., “Film and History: Artifact and Experience,” Film & History, 15/2 (1985), 26–36, at 31, original emphasisGoogle Scholar; Yeselson, Richard, “Sussing It Out,” Voice Literary Supplement (April 1985), 21 Google Scholar. See also Susman, Warren I., Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1984), 212 Google Scholar. Susman's opinion of the historical importance of Mickey Mouse is quoted from a prefatory note in Culture as History but it appeared to in a 1973 essay. Susman, Culture as History, 103, 197. For conservative umbrage at the remark see Himmelfarb, Gertrude, On Looking into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society (New York, 1994), 40 Google Scholar; and Will, George F., “‘New History’: The Schoolmasters’ Revenge,” Washington Post, 2 May 1991 Google Scholar, A19.
4 Buhle, “Tuning in Warren Susman,” 20.
5 Kessler-Harris, Alice, “From Warren Susman to Raymond Williams and Allen Ginsberg: Moving Towards a Future with Illusions,” European Contributions to American Studies, 43 (1999), 129–41, at 129 Google Scholar.
6 See David Suisman, “The Uncollected Warren Susman,” at http://davidsuisman.net/?page_id=547. I am indebted to Suisman's invaluable bibliography for many of the sources consulted for this essay.
7 Lloyd Gardner to author, e-mail, 30 Aug. 2013; Westbrook, Robert B., “Abundant Cultural History: The Legacy of Warren Susman,” Reviews in American History, 13/4 (1985), 481–6, at 481 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Westbrook, “Abundant Cultural History,” 482.
9 Brinkley, Alan, “Pop Goes America,” New Republic, 1 April 1985 Google Scholar, 36–8, at 38.
10 Susman, Culture as History, 110–11.
11 Ibid., 167, 163.
12 See Warren Susman, “Culture Heroes: Ford, Barton, Ruth,” in Culture as History, Susman, 122–49.
13 Westbrook, “Abundant Cultural History,” 482
14 Susman delivered the essay at the 1977 Wingspread Conference on New Directions in American Intellectual History and it was originally published in Higham, John and Conkin, Paul K., eds., New Directions in American Intellectual History (Baltimore, 1979)Google Scholar, 212–26. For Susman's indebtedness to David Riesman see Westbrook, “Abundant Cultural History,” 484; and Brinkley, “Pop Goes America,” 37. For the influence of the essay see Cook, James W. and Glickman, Lawrence B., “Twelve Propositions for a History of U.S. Cultural History,” in Cook, James W., Glickman, Lawrence B., and O'Malley, Michael, eds., The Cultural Turn in U.S. History (Chicago, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 3–57, at 50 n. 79, which declared the essay “foundational.” For a critical appraisal of the essay see Heinze, Andrew R., “Schizophrenia Americana: Aliens, Alienists and the ‘Personality Shift’ of Twentieth-Century Culture,” American Quarterly, 55/2 (2003), 227–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Heinze argues at 227–32 that Susman's claim that a “culture of personality” superseded a “culture of character” by the early twentieth century is unsupported by evidence and finds, in particular, that he misinterpreted the work of Orison Swett Marden. See Susman, Culture as History, 279–80.
15 Susman, Culture as History, xix–xx, xxix–xxx.
16 See Brinkley, “Pop Goes America”; and Jackson Lears, “In the American Grain,” Nation, 4 May 1985, 532–5. However, see also Rockland, Michael Aaron, “Warren Susman,” American Quarterly, 38/3 (1986), 494–5Google Scholar; Denning, Michael, “Class and Culture: Reflections on the Work of Warren Susman,” Radical History Review, 36 (1986), 110–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Westbrook, “Abundant Cultural History,” 481–6.
17 See Burke, Peter, What Is Cultural History?, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2008)Google ScholarPubMed; and Eley, Geoff, A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society (Ann Arbor, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 In Memory of Warren I. Susman, 6. Further details are available on a data sheet completed by Susman's dissertation adviser, Merle Curti, attached at the end of his dissertation. Warren Irving Susman, “Pilgrimage to Paris: The Backgrounds of American Expatriation, 1920–1934” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1957).
19 Susman to Gates, 3 April 1950, Folder 21, Box 22, Gates Papers. Susman's comment about Becker is in an undated letter from Susman to Gates that was included with a copy of a profile Susman had written of Gates for the Cornell Daily Sun. Susman to Gates, n.d., Folder 21, Box 22, Gates Papers. Susman, Culture as History, 4; In Memory of Warren I. Susman, 7, 18. (Minor typographical errors in Susman's letters have been corrected in quotations from his correspondence.)
20 Buhle, Paul, ed., History and the New Left: Madison, Wisconsin, 1950–1970 (Philadelphia, 1990), 113–14Google Scholar; James Weinstein's work for Wallace is noted in his Wikipedia entry, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Weinstein. Susman's membership card in Students for Wallace, Cornell Chapter, is in Folder 34, Box 3, Susman Papers.
21 Susman to Weinstein, 3 Oct. 1961, Weinstein Papers. Geiseking, a French German composer pianist who played classical and modernist works, had performed in Nazi-occupied France, which made him a subject of controversy when he attempted to perform in the United States in 1949. On Walter Geiseking see Aryeh Oron, “Walter Gieseking (Piano),” 2006, Bach Cantatas Website, at www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Gieseking-Walter.htm.
22 Gates to Richard Schlatter, 25 Feb. 1960, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers.
23 Susman, Culture as History, 4–5, 270; Novick, Peter, That Noble Dream, The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, 1988), 322–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Gates see the obituary in Perspectives on History (May 1999), American Historical Association webpage, at www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-1999/in-memoriam-paul-wallace-gates. On Nettels see Kammen, Michael, “Curtis P. Nettels: American Scholar, 1898–1981,” History Teacher, 16/3 (1983), 383–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and John Higham with Leonard Krieger and Felix Gilbert, History (Englewood Cliffs, 1965), 186). On Lee Benson see his obituary in Perspectives on History: The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association, 50/4 (2012), 33; and Novick, That Noble Dream, 383.
24 Susman to Curti, 15 Oct. 1954, Curti Papers; Curti, Merle, The Growth of American Thought, 2nd edn (New York, 1951)Google Scholar, v–vi.
25 Warren Susman oral history interview with Ronald J. Grele, 20 Aug. 1983, 1-28, “Oral History—Columbia—Ron Grele” folder, Box 21, Susman Papers; Brown, David S., Beyond the Frontier: The Midwestern Voice in American Historical Writing (Chicago, 2009), 89–94 Google Scholar.
26 Susman to Gates, 14 Jan. 1950, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers.
27 Susman to Gates, 24 Oct. 1949, Folder 21, Box 22, Gates Papers.
28 Susman oral history interview with Grele, 1-4, 1-9. David S. Brown, Beyond the Frontier, 78, notes that a few Wisconsin faculty voted for Thomas.
29 Levin, Matthew, Cold War University: Madison and the New Left in the Sixties (Madison, 2013), 8 Google Scholar; Buhle, History and the New Left, 8; Conkin, Paul K., “Merle Curti,” in Allen Rutland, Robert, ed., Clio's Favorites: Leading Historians of the U.S. (Columbia, 2000), 23–34, at 27 Google Scholar.
30 Susman oral history interview with Grele, 1-31. See also Brown, Beyond the Frontier, 98, who notes Perlman's disgust with history because he felt they would not hire Jews.
31 Warren Susman, “The Smoking Room School of History,” in Buhle, History and the New Left, 43–6, at 44–5. This essay is a written version of an interview conducted with Susman.
32 Susman to Merle Curti, “Thursday evening,” [Feb. 1960], Curti Papers.
33 Conkin, “Merle Curti,” 30, 32–3.
34 Details on Susman's conflicts with Curti and in the history department are contained in Susman's correspondence with Gates. See Susman to Gates, 24 Oct. 1949, 25 Nov. 1949, 30 Jan. 1950, Folder 21, Box 22, Gates Papers; and, most particularly, a long letter, Susman to Gates, 20 April 1952, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers. Susman recalled his refusal to work on foreign-aid programs as a graduate student: “I wasn't going to do any of that shit.” He was, he recalled, a “terrible, smart nosed kid.” Susman oral history interview with Grele, 1-42. Responding to a student interested in studying Curti in 1956, Susman noted of Curti that “at no time was our relationship close.” Susman to Barry K. Beyer, 10 Jan. 1956, Folder 25, Box 1, Susman Papers.
35 See Susman, “Smoking Room School of History.” For Curti's later regret over pressuring Susman to take the exam and making him think Curti was disappointed in him see Curti to Susman, 7 July 1979, Merle Curti Correspondence, 1973–95 folder, Box 4, Susman Papers. Charles Vevier wrote to Susman in 1954 that Curti was still “seriously hurt by the old difficulty involved in the prelim mess.” Charles Vevier to Susman, 3 Jan. 1954, Folder 3, Box 13, Susman Papers.
36 Susman to William Preston, 29 Jan. 1959, William Preston Correspondence, 1952–6, folder, Box 4, Susman Papers.
37 Susman to Curti, 24 July 1956, Curti Papers.
38 See Susman, “Pilgimage to Paris,” 207–9, for a summary of key elements of Susman's argument.
39 Ibid., 218–30.
40 Susman to Curti, 11 July 1955.
41 Susman, “Smoking Room School of History,” 44
42 Susman to Gates, 28 Jan. 1950, Folder 21, Box 22, Gates Papers; Susman oral history interview with Grele, 1-23 to 1-25. See also Susman to Gates, 20 April 1952, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers.
43 Susman, “Pilgrimage to Paris,” 79, 205, 321 n. 67.
44 Ibid., 212.
45 Ibid., 199–203; Susman, Culture as History, 269.
46 Susman to Curti, 9 Dec. 1956, Curti Papers.
47 Susman to Curti, 6 April 1956, 9 Dec. 1956 [Aug. 1957], Curti Papers.
48 Susman, “Pilgrimage to Paris,” 20–21.
49 Ibid., 43.
50 Susman to Curti, 4 Sept. 1957, Curti Papers.
51 Blower, Brooke L., Becoming Americans in Paris (New York, 2011), 13 Google Scholar, 265.
52 Susman, “Pilgrimage to Paris,” 282, 115, also 286, 289. See also Susman, Warren I., “A Second Country: The Expatriate Image,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 3/2 (1961), 171–83Google Scholar.
53 Susman, “Pilgrimage to Paris,” 284, 315, 353, 316–17.
54 Ibid., 317, 351.
55 See “Initial Plan for Thesis Project: Men and Social Forces: A Study in Historical Truth, 1880–1850,” Folder 21, Box 3, Susman Papers. This may have been a proposal for his master's thesis. See also Susman to Curti, n.d., Folder 32, Box 3, Susman Papers, including two-page “The Middle West: Image and Reality (1890–1930).” For his interest in Josiah Royce see Ralph H. Gabriel to Susman, 27 Oct. 1950, Herbert W. Schneider to Susman, 31 Oct. 1950, and Ralph Barton Perry to Susman, 6 Nov. 1950, Folder 32, Box 3, Susman Papers. For correspondence with Pound see the letters contained in Folder 29, Box 2, Susman Papers.
56 Susman to Gates, 2 May 1952, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers.
57 The vicissitudes of Warren Susman's early career can be tracked in his letters to Merle Curti and his undergraduate adviser, Gates, with whom he stayed in close contact. For his despair at his academic future see Warren Susman to Curti, 9 Dec. 1957, 4 Jan. [1958], 26 Feb. 1958, Curti Papers. Susman indicated that he was up for tenure at Reed College in the 1957–8 academic year, his fifth at Reed, but there is no indication tenure was granted, and he accepted a one-year appointment at Cornell University. Susman to Curti, 27 Nov. 1957, Curti Papers. For Susman's original appointment see Susman to Curti and Fred Harrington, 13 June 1953, Curti Papers. On the Reed College workload see Susman to Curti, 30 Nov. 1953, Curti Papers; Susman to Gates, 1 April 1954, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers; and Susman to Preston and “Nonie,” 16 Jan. 1953, William Preston Correspondence, 1953–94 folder, Box 4, Susman Papers. On the Velde Committee investigations see Susman to Curti, 10 July 1954, 15 Oct. 1954, Curti Papers; Susman to Gates, 21 Feb. 1955, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers; and Susman to Preston, 14 July 1954, William Preston Correspondence, 1953–94, folder, Box 4, Susman Papers. See also “Presidents of Reed: Duncan S. Ballantine,” Reed College website, at www.reed.edu/president/reed_presidents/ballantine.html; and excerpt from chap. 18, “Un-American Activities,” in “Comrades of the Quest: An Oral History of Reed College,” on the Reed College website at http://comradesofthequest.org/excerpt_chapter18.html. On Susman's effort to land Fred Harvey Harrington the Reed presidency see Fred Harvey Harrington to Susman, 20 April 1956, Folder 16, Box 1 (originally labeled Box 9), Susman Papers; Susman to Curti [fall 1954], Curti Papers; Susman to Gates, 22 June 1956, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers.
58 Susman to Curti, 13 March 1953. Susman later claimed that the real aim of the Princeton interview was to find a replacement for Eric Goldman, whom his colleagues felt obliged to replace with another Jewish scholar. In fact, Goldman remained at Princeton for the rest of his career. Susman oral history interview with Grele, 1-46 to 1-48. On Goldman's perception of anti-Semitism in the historical profession see Brown, Beyond the Frontier, 95; for Susman's sense that the profession preferred WASPs see ibid., 99–100.
59 Susman to Curti, 25 Jan. 1960, Susman to Curti [Feb. 1960], Susman to Curti, 27 Feb. 1960, Curti Papers; Susman to Preston, 6 April 1960, William Preston Correspondence, 1953–6 folder, Box 4, Susman Papers. Columbia University Press had begun the review before January 1960, when Robert J. Tilley reported that three reviews arrived, one enthusiastic (as Tilley was) and two feeling that the book did not build to a conclusive point. The enthusiastic review seems to have come from Susman's friend Charles Forcey; the publishing contract was finalized in April 1960. Robert J. Tilley to Susman, 21 Jan. 1960; Forcey to Susman, 4 Feb. 1960; Agreement to Publish, 12 April 1960, Columbia University Press, “Pilgrimage to Paris” folder, Box 14, Susman Papers.
60 Susman to Curti, 4 May 1960, Curti Papers.
61 In Memory of Warren I. Susman, 24. Richard Yeselson wrote that Susman pulled the manuscript “at the last moment because he wasn't satisfied with it.” After what he considered a rude rejection of an article early in his career, Susman refused to send off more articles, only publishing pieces that were solicited. “I'm crazy. I've broken all the rules. I should be dead on the street somewhere. I tell my students not to do what I did,” he declared. Yeselson, “Sussing It Out,” 22.
62 See, for instance, Susman to Gates, 3 April 1950, Folder 21, Box 22, Gates Papers, in which he accounts his first year of graduate school a failure, in part because he produced nothing. For examples of Susman's frequent bouts of anxiety, depression, and self-doubt see Susman to Curti, 29 April 1953, 20 Nov. 1953, 5 March 1955, 11 July 1955, 25 Sept. 1964. Curti Papers; and Susman to Weinstein, 16 Nov. 1961, Weinstein Papers. On Curti's expectations of publication see Susman to Gates, 20 April 1952, Folder 22, Box 22, Gates Papers. Curti early made his expectations clear to Susman, commenting that Wisconsin's reputation depended on its doctoral students publishing distinguished dissertations. Curti to Susman, 8 Dec. 1953, Folder 26, Box 1, Susman Papers. Subsequently Curti's tone to Susman was consistently fatherly, encouraging, and supportive; see Curti to Susman, 8 March 1955, May 22, 15 July 1955, Aug. 15, Dec.20, 1957, Folder 26, Box 1, Susman Papers. Curti suggested at one point that Susman dictate the dissertation onto a record, which would be transcribed and corrected to create a first draft. Curti to Susman, 12 Dec. 1956, Folder 26, Box 1, Susman Papers. In an encouraging letter written as Susman was finally making good progress on the dissertation, Curti urged Susman to focus on his scholarship: “to hell with the committees and college politics until this thing is finished.” Curti to Susman, 15 Aug. 1957, Folder 26, Box 1, Susman Papers. On the manuscript see the correspondence in Columbia University Press, “Pilgrimage to Paris” folder, Box 14, Susman Papers, particularly Susman to Robert J. Tilley, 25 April 1963, and Bernard Gronert to Susman, 23 April 1964.
63 Susman to Curti, 6 Jan. 1953, 1 Nov. 1957, Curti Papers.
64 Curti to Susman, Aug. 9, Aug. 20, Aug. 31, 12 Sept. 1957, Folder 26, Box 1, Susman Papers. Fred Harvey Harrington, an imposing and authoritative presence in the department, took Susman in hand in 1957, writing encouraging, directive, and practical letters to him on finishing. Susman seems to have completed the dissertation rather quickly in the summer of 1957. Fred Harvey Harrington to Susman, 24 Feb., 14 March, and 3 July 1957, Folder 16, Box 1 (formerly Box 9), Susman Papers. On Harrington see Brown, Beyond the Frontier, 132–3.
65 In Memory of Warren I. Susman, 24. For Curti's later awareness of Susman's insecurities and perfectionism see Curti to Susman, Merle Curti, 1973–95 folder, Box 4, Susman Papers.
66 Susman to Curti, Sept. 25 [1958] (the letter is erroneously dated 1959), Curti Papers.
67 Susman to Curti, 24 Oct. 1960, Curti Papers. The piece rejected seems to be “The Useless Past: American Intellectuals and the Frontier Thesis, 1910–1930,” eventually published in the Bucknell Review and republished as “The Frontier Thesis and the American Intellectual” in Culture as History.
68 Gates to George Adams, 13 March 1967, Folder 21, Box 22, Gates Papers. Gates, Susman declared, prodded him on his need to produce in almost every conversation. Susman to Curti, 1 Nov. 1958, Curti Papers.
69 Susman to Weinstein, 16 Nov. 1961, Weinstein Papers.
70 Susman to Curti, 4 May 1960, Curti Papers.
71 Portions of this last work, which appeared as “Uses of the Puritan Past” in Susman, Culture as History, 39–49, are similar to ideas presented by Susman at the Columbia University Seminar on American Civilization in March 1961. Susman's papers contain two stenographic reports of presentations he made to this seminar. See “University Seminar 429–430 (American Civilization), Minutes, Meeting of 14 March 1961,” Folder 22, Box 1, Susman Papers.
72 Susman, Culture as History, 8–11.
73 On the importance of debates on relativism and the progressive historians’ insistence that history is written from a “frame of reference” see Novick, That Noble Dream, 251–64. On the imperative among proponents of the New History to make history relevant and their embrace of relativism as an ideal over objectivity, see Higham with Krieger and Gilbert, History, 105–31. Under Beard's influence, Curti chaired a committee of the Social Science Research Council that prepared Theory and Practice in Historical Study (1946), which declared that every written history is a product of a particular frame of reference, which may be countered by avoiding absolutes and recognizing preconceptions. Ibid., 130. Curti, Merle, “The Democratic Theme in American Historical Literature,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 39/1 (1952), 3–28, at 18–19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
74 Warren Susman, “The Historian's Task,” in Buhle, History and the New Left, 275–84, at 277–8.
75 “University Seminar 429–430,” 3.
76 Susman, Culture as History, 3.
77 Ibid., 12, 15.
78 Ibid., 7, 21.
79 Ibid., 18.
80 Ibid., 17. Susman cited Lee Benson on the mythical nature of the frontier. Lee Benson, “The Historical Background of Turner's Frontier Essay,” Agricultural History, 25 (April 1951), 59–82.
81 Susman, Culture as History, 70, 66–70.
82 Ibid., 17.
83 Ibid., 22–4.
84 Ibid., 22.
85 Ibid., 27.
86 See “For a Left Caucus in the American Historical Association,” Folder 13, Box 6, Series 1, William Appleman Williams Papers, Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Oregon State University. The typescript document is included in a folder of correspondence with Susman and identified as “the work of Lasch, Susman, Genovese, etc.” The authors declare a “special responsibility” as historians to combat the decay of the nation's social system.
87 The anecdote is from Lloyd Gardner, shared in conversation, 10 June 2015. Leo Ribuffo provides an account of the sit-in, in which Susman's fist-pounding occurred when challenging a faculty defending his position by appealing to one of Susman's “favorite words, ‘civilization.’” Susman demanded of his opponent, “How do you define it?” In Memory of Warren Susman, 32–3.
88 Susman to Weinstein, 16 Nov. 1961, Weinstein Papers. In some ways, Susman shared the postcapitalist vision that Howard Brick has identified among left-leaning social scientists in the twentieth century who displaced social theories grounded on economics with ones built on a unified sociocultural analysis. Proponents of this vision conceptualized cultures and societies as functional wholes and developed a type of sociocultural analysis that self-consciously marginalized the economic sphere and, in a “shift away from economics,” defined society and culture in noneconomic terms. Brick, Howard, Transcending Capitalism: Visions of a New Society in Modern American Thought (Ithaca, 2006), 6–14 Google Scholar, 136.
89 Susman to Curti, 10 Aug. 1956, 10 Nov. 1958, Curti Papers.
90 Susman to Weinstein, n.d., Weinstein Papers. See Susman, Culture as History, 69.
91 Lasch, Christopher, The Agony of the American Left (New York, 1969)Google Scholar, viii. On the distinctions between an older and younger cohort of left historians in the 1960s see Novick, That Noble Dream, 418–20, 434.
92 Novick, That Noble Dream, 435.
93 On the group see Ibid., 428–38; and Miller, Eric, Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch (Grand Rapids, 2010), 141–51Google Scholar. See also the names on a draft of the planned statement attached to Mel [Rothenberg], Miles [Mogulescu], Naomi [Weisstein], and Jesse [Lemisch] to ?, July 26, Folder 10, Box 3, Susman Papers.
94 The quotations are taken from an untitled draft circulated by Weinstein in January 1968 and enclosed with Weinstein to Susman, 10 Jan. 1968, Folder 10, Box 3, Susman Papers. See Untitled Draft Planning Document for Socialist Party, 1.
95 Ibid., 6–7, 8.
96 Ibid., 16.
97 Susman to Lasch, 5 Oct. 1970, Folder 1, Box 3, Lasch Papers, original emphasis.
98 Ibid.
99 Lasch to Susman, 26 Oct. 1970, Folder 32, Box 1 (formerly Box 9), Susman Papers.
100 See Eley, A Crooked Line, xiii, 5, 15–18, 49, 54–5; and Burke, What Is Cultural History?, 18.
101 Eley, Crooked Line, 95, 91–102, 110, 147.
102 Sewell, William H. Jr, Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation (Chicago, 2005), 157 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the New Cultural History generally see, in addition to Eley, Crooked Line; and Burke, What Is Cultural History?; Sewell, Logics of History, 152–74; Rodgers, Daniel T., Age of Fracture (Cambridge, MA, 2011), 90–107 Google Scholar; Johnson, Walter, “On Agency,” Journal of Social History, 37/1 (2003), 113–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berkhofer, Robert Jr, “A New Context for a New American Studies?” American Quarterly, 41/4 (1989), 588–613, at 589–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cook and Glickman, “Twelve Propositions,” 10–14, 18–37; Nelson Blake, Casey, “Culturalist Approaches to Intellectual History,” in Halttunen, Karen, ed., A Companion to American Cultural History (New York, 2008), 383–95Google Scholar; Hall, David D., “Backwards to the Future: The Cultural Turn and the Wisdom of Intellectual History,” Modern Intellectual History, 9/1 (2012), 171–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wickberg, Daniel, “Heterosexual White Male: Some Recent Inversions in American Cultural History,” Journal of American History, 92/1 (2005), 13–57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Grafton, Anthony, Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West (Cambridge, MA, 2009), 188–212 Google Scholar.
103 John Higham, “Introduction,” in Higham and Conkin, New Directions in American Intellectual History, xi–xlx, at xi–xii; Rush Welter, “Studying the National Mind,” in ibid., 64–82, at 64, 77–8; Bender, Thomas, “The Present and Future of American Intellectual History: An Introduction,” Modern Intellectual History, 9/1 (2012), 149–56, at 149–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wise, Gene, “‘Paradigm Dramas’ in American Studies: A Cultural and Institutional History of the Movement,” American Quarterly, 31/3 (1979), 293–337, at 298 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 306–8, 311–19, 332–3; Berkhofer, “A New Context for a New American Studies?”, 588, 606 n. 1; Gunn, Giles, The Culture of Criticism and the Criticism of Culture (New York, 1987), 147–50Google Scholar; Grafton, Worlds Made By Words, 201; Cook and Glickman, “Twelve Propositions,” 8–9, 21–2, 31–2.
104 Susman disparaged the idea of a “spirit of an age” and national character as products of romantic confusion in a letter to John Higham, and even found the idea of a “climate of opinion” dubious. He meant that he was interested in the variety of perspectives operative in a culture at any time. Culture was the product of the tensions between them. Despite this point, he still found culture unified, if only by the common problems to be solved. Moreover, he consistently spoke of a singular American culture. Susman to Higham, 8 Oct. 1960, Folder 43, Box 1, Susman Papers.
105 Susman, Culture as History, 102–3.
106 Vico, along with Benedetto Croce, was in a Continental tradition of historiography that imagined that cultural experience, as opposed to natural phenomena, constitutes a “second realm of knowledge” and that a nation, period, or culture must be explored from the inside with a humanistic method (Geisteswissenschaften) distinct from the scientific method. Bullock, Alan, The Humanistic Tradition in the West (New York, 1985), 77 Google Scholar, 167. Vico was a favorite of Susman. Susman, Culture as History, xxiv, 101, 290. For a lucid analysis of Vico's historical theory see Berlin, Isaiah, “The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities,” Salmagundi, 27 (Summer–Fall 1974), 22–36 Google Scholar, at 28–9 for the particular application to Susman's cultural theory.
107 Susman, “Film and History,” 26–7.
108 Susman, Culture as History, 103.
109 Buhle, “Tuning In Warren Susman,” 20–1; Kessler-Harris, “From Warren Susman to Raymond Williams and Allen Ginsberg,” 136.
110 For references to Susman's excellence as a teacher see Rockland, “Warren Susman,” 494; Westbrook, “Abundant Cultural History,” 482; and In Memory of Warren I. Susman, 2–3, 10, 23–4, 28–33, 53. Susman asserted that he used the adjective “brilliant” sparingly. See Susman to Curti, 1 Nov. 1958, Curti Papers; and Susman to Weinstein, n.d., Weinstein Papers.
111 In Memory of Warren I. Susman, 28–9, original emphasis. Ribuffo took Susman's course in American intellectual history in his junior year and loved it because it was, as he remembered, about “weirdos.” Ribuffo, Leo P., “Confessions of an Accidental (or Perhaps Overdetermined) Historian,” in Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth and Lasch-Quinn, Elisabeth, eds., Reconstructing History: The Emergence of a New Historical Society (New York, 1999), 153 Google Scholar.
112 Susman to Preston, 29 Jan. 1959, William Preston, 1953–94 folder, Box 4, Susman Papers.
113 Susman to Higham, 8 Oct. 1960, Folder 43, Box 1, Susman Papers.
114 Susman, Culture as History, 160, 211.
