Horace Mann
Horace Mann

Author: Jonathan Messerli

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Published: 1972

Total Pages: 698

ISBN-13:

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In this full-scale critical biography of Horace Mann, Jonathan Messerli has provided the first comprehensive portrait of the humanitarian reformer who helped lay the basis for the American public school system. Looking behind the father-of-the-system legend, Jonathan Messerli shows us the man himself in the context of his era, with its tensions and fears for the future of society. Mann's legal and political careers involved him in virtually every reform movement of his time -- a period when the poor, the intemperate, the enslaved, the illiterate, the imprisoned, the insane were seen by reformers not merely as objects of pity and benevolence, but as distressing challenges to the growing optimism of "the American way of life." Mr. Messerli shows Horace Mann on a one-man crusade to modify human nature through moral indoctrination of the young and systematic training in literacy and citizenship. Writing voluminously, lecturing across the country, Mann worked tirelessly to establish a public-based system of education that he would, he hoped, usher in a millennium of enlightened ethics, patriotism, brotherhood, and affluence. -- From publisher's description.

The Anti-Masonic Party in the United States
The Anti-Masonic Party in the United States

Author: William Preston Vaughn

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-07-11

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 081315040X

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Here, for the first time in more than eighty years, is a detailed study of political Antimasonry on the national, state, and local levels, based on a survey of existing sources. The Antimasonic party, whose avowed goal was the destruction of the Masonic Lodge and other secret societies, was the first influential third party in the United States and introduced the device of the national presidential nominating convention in 1831. Vaughn focuses on the celebrated "Morgan Affair" of 1826, the alleged murder of a former Mason who exposed the fraternity's secrets. Thurlow Weed quickly transformed the crusading spirit aroused by this incident into an anti-Jackson party in New York. From New York, the party soon spread through the Northeast. To achieve success, the Antimasons in most states had to form alliances with the major parties, thus becoming the "flexible minority." After William Wirt's defeat by Andrew Jackson in the election of 1832, the party waned. Where it had been strong, Antimasonry became a reform-minded, anti-Clay faction of the new Whig party and helped to secure the presidential nominations of William Henry Harrison in 1836 and 1840. Vaughn concludes that although in many ways the Antimasonic Crusade was finally beneficial to the Masons, it was not until the 1850s that the fraternity regained its strength and influence.