vital relationship between natural conditions and human development. A generation passed before students of American history made any constructive application of Buckle's ideas. The first systematic attempt to apply a geographic interpretation to American history was made by Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, who in 1884 contributed a brief section on "Physiography of North America" to Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (8 v.; Boston, 1884-1889), vol. iv, pp. i-xxx, and later elaborated his ideas in his book entitled Nature and Man in America (New York, 1891). Approaching the subject from the standpoint of a geologist, he first traced in this volume the effects of terrestrial changes upon the fauna and flora of North America, and then devoted several notable chapters (vi-viii) to setting forth, in a large way, the influence of geographic variations upon the history of man in America from pre-Columbian days to the present.

In 1892 the Englishman Edward John Payne published the first volume of his notable work, History of the New World Called America (2 v.; Oxford, 1892-1899). This work, which has never been completed, sought to explain the conditions of life among the American aborigines as the result of natural conditions, especially the nature of the food supply and the lack of useful domestic animals.

In 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner read his epoch-making address to the American Historical Association on "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," later published in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1893, pp. 197-227, and also in his The Frontier in American History (New York, 1920), pp. 1-38. Professor Turner's thesis, that "The existence of free land, the continuous recession, the advance of American settlement westward explain American development," is almost too well known to require re-statement here. Although Professor Turner phrased his thought in this and his other studies very largely in the terminology of the physiographer, the frontier is to him "a form of society rather than an area," and his chief importance to American historical thinking has, in last analysis, been his elucidation of the part played by economic group conflicts in our history. See pp. 69-70 of the present volume.

The fullest statements we have of the importance of physical influences in American history appeared in two books, published in 1903, which had been worked out independently of each other. Albert Perry Brigham's Geographic Influences in American History (Boston) marked no important advance beyond what Professor Shaler had set forth in 1891. Ellen Churchill Semple's American History and its Geographic Conditions (Boston), couched in English of unusual charm, continues to be the best manual that has been written on the subject.

A number of monographic studies along the lines suggested_by these works have been carried out since 1903. A notable series has been written by Archer Butler Hulbert under the general title Historic Highways of America (16 v.; Cleveland, 1902-1905). In 1907 a notable Conference on the Relation of Geography to

History, presided over by Professor Turner, was held in conjunction with the meeting of the American Historical Association at Madison. The principal papers were presented by Miss Semple and Orin Grant Libby. See report of this conference in the Bulletin of the American Geographic Society, vol. xl, pp. 1-17.

Students interested in this field should be acquainted with Professor Hulbert's article entitled, "The Increasing Debt of History to Science" in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. xxix (1919), pp. 29-42, wherein he summarizes the results that have been achieved from the application of a physiographical explanation to American history and suggests that further clarification might be brought about by utilizing the information made available by the climatologist, botanist, geologist, ornithologist and hydrographer. Teachers of American history should be familiar with Dixon Ryan Fox's essay, "American History and the Map," introducing his carefully-prepared map studies in Harper's Atlas of American History (New York, 1920).

CHAPTER III

ECONOMIC INFLUENCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY

I

By the term "economic interpretation of history" is meant that view of the past which maintains that economic influences have been the preponderant factors in the history of mankind. Although traces of this theory may be found in writings prior to his time, Karl Marx, the father of modern Socialism, is rightly regarded as the great formulator of the doctrine. Undoubtedly the association of Marx's name with the theory of economic determinism has caused many people to regard this point of view with considerable distrust; and even the historians, particularly those in the United States, have been cautious about admitting themselves to be adherents of the doctrine. During the excitement of the World War, the avowal by a New York school teacher of his belief in the economic interpretation of history was regarded by certain members of the Board of Education as sufficient grounds for his expulsion. Perhaps the feeling of the ordinary man is best expressed by the witticism of a learned historian in an address delivered before the American Historical Association, to the effect that the members of this school of historical interpretation were responsible for putting the "hiss" into history.

As a matter of fact there is no necessary connection between a belief in the predominance of economic influences in history and the doctrine of Socialism. Most historians who have subscribed to the former view are not Socialists;

1

and, on the other hand, it is probable that few Socialists outside of the small circle of the intelligentzia know anything about this special theory of historical development. The economic interpretation of history merely represents an effort to explain, from the viewpoint of economic tendencies, the deep-flowing currents moving underneath the surface of the past. Socialism, on the other hand, is a prediction, one of a number of possible predictions, as to the direction, velocity, and goal of these currents at some time in the future.

Because of the popular confusion of the theory of economic determinism with Socialism, the student of American history may prefer to ignore the Marxian origin of the doctrine and claim for it an earlier and purely American authorship. Certainly the thought underlying the theory has seldom been better expressed than by James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," in No. 10 of the Federalist Papers, which were written in 1787 and 1788 to win popular support for the federal Constitution then pending before the state ratifying conventions. After pointing out that mankind has constantly been influenced and divided by differences over religion and government or by attachment to outstanding leaders, Madison added: "But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views." Here is an explicit avowal that, in the long run, history is the resultant of the interplay of social

energies produced by differences in the amount and kind of material possessions held by the several sections of the population.

In attempting to apply the principle of economic interpretation to American history, one is at once confronted with the necessity of distinguishing between geographic or environmental influences, on the one hand, and the purely economic basis of American development, on the other. The fact is that the two classes of influences are sometimes so blended that it is impossible, or at least undesirable, to separate them. As has already been pointed out in this volume, the geographic background of history includes such elements as the contour of the earth's surface, the distribution of land and water, relationships of the size and distance of natural objects and, in the larger meaning of the term, climatic conditions. Economic influences arise from the possession of property by man, or from the desire for such possession, or from the use of such property as a lever of political or social power. A mountain range might, as a geographic condition, obstruct the movement of population; with the discovery of gold, it becomes an economic influence which draws people irresistibly,

II

Historians have generally treated the discovery of America as being the inevitable outcome of the economic plight in which Europe found herself) because of the blocking of the Oriental trade routes by the Turks after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. That view now requires correction, for Professor Lybyer has shown, from a study of contemporary documents and of the curve of prices of Oriental commodities in Europe, that the main routes of Oriental trade through the Levant were not obstructed by the Turks until some years after Columbus's voyage of dis