Daniel Joseph Boorstin (October 1, 1914 – February 28, 2004) was an American historian at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...
.
Repudiating his youthful membership in the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
, Boorstin became a political conservative and a prominent exponent of consensus history. He argued in ''The Genius of American Politics'' (1953) that ideology, propaganda, and political theory are foreign to America. His writings were often seen, along with those of historians such as
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916October 24, 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century.
Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Rejecting his earlier histo ...
Clinton Rossiter
Clinton Lawrence Rossiter III (September 18, 1917 – July 11, 1970) was an American historian and political scientist at Cornell University (1947-1970) who wrote ''The American Presidency'', among 20 other books, and won both the Bancroft Prize ...
, as belonging to the "consensus school", which emphasized the unity of the American people and downplayed class and social conflict. Boorstin especially praised inventors and entrepreneurs as central to the American success story.
Biography
Boorstin was born in 1914, in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
, Georgia, into a Jewish family. His father, Samuel, was a lawyer who participated in the defense of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent who was accused and convicted of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl. After Frank's 1915
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
led to a surge of
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
sentiment in Georgia, the family moved to
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region wit ...
, where Boorstin was raised. He graduated from Tulsa's Central High School in 1930, at the age of 15.Wilson, Linda D. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'' "Boorstin, Daniel J. (1914–2004)."
Although Samuel wanted his son to go to the
University of Oklahoma
, mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State"
, type = Public research university
, established =
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.7billion (2021)
, pr ...
, become an attorney and join his own law firm, Daniel wanted to go to
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each c ...
.Greene, Wayne. "Wayne's World: An academic blog about Daniel Boorstin, but it does have one funny line in it." ''Tulsa World''. May 27, 2014. Accessed May 29, 2016. He graduated with highest honors (''summa cum laude'') from Harvard in 1934, then studied at
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...
as a
Rhodes Scholar
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
, receiving BA and
BCL BCL may stand for:
Law & Politics
* Bachelor of Civil Law, the term used to describe a variety of legal degrees offered by universities in English-speaking countries (as distinct from Canon Law and Common Law)
* Bangladesh Chhatra League, the stud ...
degrees. The American National Biography Online states that he joined the Communist Party in 1938, then left it in 1939, when Russia and Germany invaded Poland.Evenson, Bruce J. "Daniel J. Boorstin," American National Biography Online. February 2000. Accessed October 2, 2016. In 1940, he earned an SJD degree at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
.
Boorstin moved away from his earlier leftist views. In 1953, after being subpoenaed by the
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative United States Congressional committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives, create ...
, Boorstin became a cooperating witness and gave the committee the names of other Party members in his cell. His lectures were later boycotted by some students due to his testimony to the HUAC.
Boorstin was hired as an assistant professor at
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...
in 1942, where he stayed for two years. In 1944, he was hired by the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...
(now known as the National Museum of American History, Behring Center) from 1973 to 1975.
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
nominated Boorstin to be
Librarian of Congress
The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. In addition to overseeing the library, the Libra ...
, in 1975.
On April 9, 1941, he married a
Wellesley College
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial ...
graduate, Ruth Carolyn Frankel (1917–2013). She quickly became his partner and editor for his first book, ''The Mysterious Science of the Law'', published in the same year. Boorstin, with Ruth as his collaborator, wrote more than 20 books, including two major trilogies, one on the American experience and the other on world intellectual history. '' The Americans: The Democratic Experience'', the final book in the first trilogy, received the
1974
Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; ...
Pulitzer Prize in history
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...
. Boorstin's second trilogy, ''
The Discoverers
''The Discoverers'' is a non-fiction historical work by Daniel Boorstin, published in 1983, and is the first in the Knowledge Trilogy, which also includes '' The Creators'' and ''The Seekers''. The book, subtitled ''A History of Man's Search to ...
The Seekers
The Seekers were an Australian folk music, folk-influenced pop music, pop quartet, originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the Un ...
,'' examines the scientific, artistic and philosophic histories of humanity, respectively. In his “Author’s Note” for ''The Daniel J. Boorstin Reader'' (Modern Library, 1995), he wrote, “Essential to my life and work as a writer was my marriage in 1941 to Ruth Frankel who has ever since been my companion and editor for all my books.” Her obituary in ''The Washington Post'' (December 6, 2013) quotes Boorstin as saying, “Without her, I think my works would have been twice as long and half as readable.”
Within the discipline of social theory, Boorstin's 1961 book ''The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America'' is an early description of aspects of American life that were later termed hyperreality and
postmodernity
Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the ...
. In ''The Image'', Boorstin describes shifts in American culture – mainly due to advertising – where the reproduction or simulation of an event becomes more important or "real" than the event itself. He goes on to coin the term pseudo-event, which describes events or activities that serve little to no purpose other than to be reproduced through advertisements or other forms of publicity. This book also describes the type of false stories that came to be called " fake news" in the 2010s. The idea of pseudo-events anticipates later work by
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...
and
Guy Debord
Guy-Ernest Debord (; ; 28 December 1931 – 30 November 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, critic of work, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situation ...
. The work is an often-used text in American sociology courses, and Boorstin's concerns about the social effects of technology remain influential.
Boorstin has been credited with saying, "Ideas need no passports from their place of origin, nor visas for the countries they enter... We, the librarians of the world, are servants of an indivisible world ... Books and ideas make a boundless world." ''This Land'' Winter 2016. Accessed September 28, 2016.
When President Ford nominated Boorstin to be Librarian of Congress in 1975, the nomination was supported by the
Authors Guild
The Authors Guild is America's oldest and largest professional organization for writers and provides advocacy on issues of free expression and copyright protection. Since its founding in 1912 as the Authors League of America, it has counted among ...
but opposed by liberals, who objected to his perceived conservatism and his opposition to the social revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was attacked by the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...
because Boorstin "was not a library administrator". The Senate confirmed the nomination without debate.
Boorstin retired in 1987, saying that he wanted to do full-time writing. He died of pneumonia February 28, 2004, in Washington D.C. He was survived by Ruth, his three sons, Paul, Jonathan and David, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. David Levy, a history professor at the
University of Oklahoma
, mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State"
, type = Public research university
, established =
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.7billion (2021)
, pr ...
, said humorously in one of his lectures after Boorstin's death: "One can only imagine what he might have achieved, if he had only listened to his father’s advice about where to go to college."
Boorstin's approach to history
Professor Levy delivered a lecture about Boorstin in April 2014 at an Oklahoma University event, the President's Day of Learning. He had several observations about Boorstin's approach to American history that seem to explain why many contemporary historians opposed his appointment to head the Library of Congress. According to Levy:
* Boorstin believed that the main points of American history were made by what the people agreed upon, rather than what they fought over.
* He emphasized continuities in history, rather than radical changes.
* He distrusted doctrinaire thinking; his writings minimized the role of pure thinkers and emphasized the role of problem solvers.
* He was conservative in politics and his approach to culture, and was revolted by what he saw as vulgarities in American life and advertising.
* He observed the transformative power of seemingly mundane cultural advances as air conditioning, telephones, catalog shopping, canned food and typewriters.
Impact on the Library of Congress
John Y. Cole
John Y. Cole (born July 30, 1940) is an American librarian, historian, and author. He was the founding director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and in 2016 became the first official historian of the Library of Congress.
Educ ...
, in the obituary of Boorstin he wrote for the ''American Antiquarian'', credited Boorstin with bringing new intellectual energy to the Library of Congress (LOC), opening the institution to, "the public, to scholars, and to new constituencies.
In 1976, Boorstin held a press conference to announce that he had discovered the contents of President Lincoln's pockets when he was assassinated in 1865. They had been in a wall safe in the Librarian's office. Boorstin had these artifacts put on public display, where they have become the most popular attraction for tourists visiting the American Treasures of the Library of Congress exhibition in the Library's Jefferson Building. He was instrumental in creating the
American Folklife Center
The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a repo ...
in 1976, and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in 1977.
In 1979, the LOC and the Kennedy Center opened a Performing Arts Library in the Kennedy Center. In 1980, Boorstin set up the Council of Scholars, a new link between the LOC and the world of scholarship. Another major event during Boorstin's tenure at the LOC was the construction and implementation of LOC's James Madison Memorial Building during 1980-1982. He obtained private contributions to open the Mary Pickford Theater in the Madison Building in 1983. The theater was intended to increase public awareness of the LOC's large collection of motion pictures.
In 1984, Boorstin and Architect of the Capitol George White teamed up to persuade Congress to appropriate $81.5 million for rehabilitating two of the LOC's older structures, the Jefferson (1897) and Adams (1939) Buildings. In 1986, Boorstin appeared before Congress to oppose legislation that would have made drastic cuts in the LOC budget. His pleas resulted in substantially restoring the proposed cuts. It also resulted in his being called, "an intellectual Paul Revere."
Overall, Boorstin proved so persuasive that the Federal appropriation increased from $116 million to more than $250 million during his administration.
Honors
His book, ''The Americans: The Colonial Experience (1958)'' won the Bancroft Prize for best book on history. The Society of American Historians awarded Boorstin the Francis Parkman Prize for ''The Americans: The National Experience (1965)''. Boorstin was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, First Class, by the Japanese government in 1986. He received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...
in 1986. He was awarded a
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
for writing ''The Americans: The Democratic Experience'' (1973).
He was a member of both the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
and the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
.
He was inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 1989, and received the Oklahoma Book Award in 1993 for ''The Creators''.
He held twenty honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Laws from the
University of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin to ...
A History of the United States
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes ...
*
* Diggins, John P. "The Perils of Naturalism: Some Reflections on Daniel J. Boorstin's Approach to American History." ''
American Quarterly
''American Quarterly'' is an academic journal and the official publication of the American Studies Association. The journal covers topics of both domestic and international concern in the United States and is considered a leading resource in the ...
'' (1971): 153–180. in JSTOR
* Morgan, Edmund S. "Daniel J. Boorstin, 1 October 1914 · 28 February 2004," ''
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' is a quarterly journal published by the American Philosophical Society since 1838. The journal contains papers which have been read at meetings of the American Philosophical Society each April ...
'' (2006) 150#2 pp. 347–35 in JSTOR * Pole, J. R. "Daniel J. Boorstin." in ''Past-masters: Some Essays on American Historians'' edited by Marcus, Cunliffe and Robin Winks (
Harper & Row
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.
History
J. & J. Harper (1817–1833)
James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', May 2, 1986.
* Wilson, Clyde N. ''Twentieth-Century American Historians'' (
Gale
A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface winds moving at a speed of between 34 and 47 knots (, or ).official site
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...