America’s Story Through Fresh Eyes: A Guest Post by James West Davidson

The entirety of the United States in one immensely accessible history, told with panache and inviting readers to dig deeper into the expansive history of this young nation. Read on for an exclusive essay from James West Davidson on writing A Little History of the United States.

When Yale Press asked me to write A Little History of the United States, I told a friend, “I want to tell this story through fresh eyes.” An offhand comment; but it stuck. And I realized I had to think more closely about what I meant.

To begin with, seeing with fresh eyes means being there. I had to place myself on the ground, surveying the surroundings as if I had never been there before. My “Little History” was not going to be an encyclopedic collection of names, places, and dates. Nor a pageant of famous people enacting well-known deeds. I wanted to humanize my subjects—watch how they actually lived through pivotal events, often in unexpected, even quirky ways.

What do I mean? Here are a few examples from the book:

• In the 1880s, the American rail system helped transform the country into a modern industrial society. But nobody had settled the question of how wide its railroad tracks should be. Some companies had rails four feet eight and a half inches wide; others, five or even six feet. Standards had to be agreed upon and changes made.
  
  That’s a generalization. How did this happen on the ground? Look with fresh eyes: “On Sunday, May 30, 1886, thousands of workers in the South pulled up the rails of their five-foot tracks and nudged them three inches closer together. With crews racing each other to get the most tracks adjusted, some thirteen thousand miles were narrowed in about thirty-six hours. From then on, southern trains could run on northern lines.”
  
  
• In the early days of Congress, sessions proved more casual than the formalities of today: “In the balcony of the Senate, a sign warned visitors, not to put their shoes up on the railing, ‘as the dirt from them falls upon the Senators’ heads.’”
  
  
• Most Americans know that Harriet Tubman led enslaved African Americans to freedom along the Underground Railroad. What was fresh news to me was that sometimes she carried with her a pair of live chickens. Live chickens? Indeed! Tubman’s “superb acting skills got her out of more than one tight spot. Sometimes she carried a pair of chickens that she let loose and chased when she needed to distract attention from fugitives.”
  
  
• And finally, a historian’s Academy Award for Best Performance in the Arts of War goes to the Dutch colonists of New Netherlands, who conquered New Sweden along the Delaware River: “When the Swedes surrendered their fort, the Dutch forced them to march out with musket balls in their mouths—to remind the Swedes that their conquerors had the power to shoot them all if they pleased.”

I could go on, but the point is clear. “The damned human race,” as Mark Twain once called it, has been endlessly inventive. Even the best novelists would be hard-pressed to think up the things real people have done. Seen fresh, the rise of the American Republic is an epic tale that never grows stale.