Apostle of Human Progress: Lester Frank Ward and American Political Thought, 1841-1913 (American Intellectual Culture)

377 Pages·2003·23.81 MB·English

by  Edward C. Rafferty

Apostle of
Human Progress
American Intellectual Culture
Series Editors: Jean Betkke Elsktain, University of Chicago,
Ted V. McAllister, Pepperdine University,
Wilfred M. McClay, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
When All the Gods Trembled: Darwinism, Scopes, and American Intellectuals
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Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism
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Postmodernism Rightly Understood: The Return to Realism in American
Thought
by Peter Augustine Lawler
A Requiem for the American Village
by Paul K. Conkin
A Pragmatist's Progress? Richard Rorty and American Intellectual Histoy
by John Pettegrew
The Next Religious Establishment
by Eldon J. Eisenach
A World Made Safe for Differences: Cold War Intellectuals and the
Politics of Identity
by Christopher Shannon
Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Making of a Democratic Intellectual
by Peter S. Field
Intellectuals and the American Presidency: Philosophers, Jesters, or
Technicians?
by Tevi Troy
American Feminism and the Birth of New Age Spirituality: Searching for the
Higher Selfi 1875-1915
by Catherine Tumber
The Lost Soul of American Protestantism
by D. G. Hart
Transnational America: Cultural Pluralist Thought in the Twentieth Centuy
by Everett Helmut Akam
Creating the American Mind: Intellect and Politics in the Colonial Colleges
by J. David Hoeveler
Species of Origin: America's Search for a Creation Story
by Karl W. Giberson and Donald A. Yerxa
Apostle of Human Progress: Lester Frank Ward and American Political
Thought, 1841-1913
by Edward C. Rafferty
Apostle of
Human Progress
Lester Frank Ward and American
Political Thought, 1841-1913
Edward C. Rafferty
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rafferty, Edward C., 1969-
Apostle of human progress : Lester Frank Ward and American political
thought, 1841-1913 / by Edward C. Rafferty.
p. cm. - (American intellectual culture)
title: Lester Frank Ward and American political thought, 1841-1913.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7425-2216-4 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 0-7425-2217-2 (pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Ward, Lester Frank, 1841-1913.2. Sociology-United
States-History. 3. Political science-United States-History. I.
Title: Lester Frank Ward and American political thought, 1841-1913.11.
Title. 111. Series.
HM479.W37 R34 2003
301'.0973--dc21
2002152709
Printed in the United States of America
@" The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.
To my parents, Edward and AM;
to my wife, Marie Myers;
to my daughter, Cecilia Anne;
and to the twins, Edward and Emma.
Lester F. Ward photographed when he was a professor of social science at
Brown University, circa 1910 . (Courtesy of Brown University Archives)
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: A Life Apart from Circumstantial Things 1
1 Self-Made Men, 1841-1862 13
2 An Equal Chance in the Race of Life, 1861-1870 41
3 The Land of Birds and Flowers, 1870-1879 71
4 Restless Skepticism, 1880-1883 109
5 A True National Philosophy, 1883-1887 141
6 The Great Social Problem, 1886-1893 165
7 Spencer-Smashing at Washington, 1894-1900 203
8 Gulliver among the Lilliputians, 1900-1913 241
Conclusion: Glimpses of the Cosmos 283
Notes 297
Bibliography 337
Index 357
About the Author 363
vii
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Acknowledgments
I have lived with Lester Ward since spring 1992 when I wrote a first-year
essay for graduate school on Ward’s thought. That essay grew into a
dissertation written in Brown University’s history department. The gen-
erous assistance of the Brown University history department, the Brown
University graduate school, the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study
of American Civilization, and the Spencer Foundation’s Mentor Program
provided much-needed funds for the completion of this project.
A number of research institutions provided assistance in this project by
locating papers and finding manuscripts. First, the staff at the John Hay
Library at Brown, which holds the largest collection of Ward material, al-
ways provided helpful and courteous service for my many demands to
read and reread parts of the Ward papers. The Library of Congress, the
Smithsonian Institution, and the Archives and Special Collections De-
partment at George Washington University also provided access to their
Ward materials. The libraries of Cornell University, Idaho State Univer-
sity, Swarthmore College’s Peace Collection, Southern Illinois University
at Carbondale, and the University of Michigan kindly sent letters and
other materials on Ward from their collections. The Bradford (Pennsyl-
vania) County Historical Society also sent materials on one of Ward’s
early biographers as well as on county life in the middle of the nineteenth
century.
Each of my graduate advisers deserves special mention for reading this
manuscript many times over and contributing to its improvement
throughout its many drafts. Professor John Thomas, Professor James Pat-
terson, and Professor Mary Gluck all provided essential criticism and
ix