American aristocrats A family, a fortune, and the making of American capitalism

In the years after the American Revolution, the availability of land west of the Appalachians lured settlers and speculators into the region with aspirations of economic success. Historian Stout (Yale) examines the Anderson family of Kentucky, beginning with patriarch Richard C. Anderson, Sr., who was named surveyor general of the Virginia Military District and was responsible for awarding lands to Revolutionary War veterans. Anderson acquired valuable lands in Ohio and Kentucky, revealing how some landed middle-class families could become wealthy through land speculation. Anderson's children and other family members participated in the western land acquisition and variously became congressmen, served as ambassador to Columbia, graduated from West Point, and became farmers. Making extensive use of Anderson family papers, Stout argues that this forgotten elite family played an important role in land speculation and in shaping capitalism in the new republic. Despite their status, family members also experienced anxiety over their material well-being, which represented the possibilities and the hazards of the land grab as well as the vagaries of the capitalistic economy. Stout provides solid historical context to place Anderson family members--both men and women--in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic libraries. --Raymond M. Hyser, James Madison University

Using a rich trove of family letters, diaries, business records, and other writings, Stout (The New England Soul), professor of American religious history at Yale, chronicles the affairs of multiple generations of one of America's "founding" families, the Andersons, from the mid-18th through the 19th century. Stout's intimate work reconstructs the Andersons' experiences and identifies them as representative of the nation's founding elite. The clan's patriarch was Robert Clough Anderson Sr., a Revolutionary War veteran who was awarded the post of surveyor general of a vast tract of the Western frontier. This appointment laid the basis for subsequent generations of his family to accumulate wealth and land through speculation; receive education; and embark on careers in law, politics, banking, and the military. The land itself becomes the "main protagonist" of this story and "the conduit for many (though by no means all) to realize their own economic dream" in the new American experiment of republican capitalism. Intense anxiety-over holding onto acquired land, financial panics, disease, and short life expectancies-emerges as a major theme. The foundational American crimes of slavery and the removal of indigenous peoples, which the Andersons participated in, are duly acknowledged though not a main focus. Stout turns a deep primary-source excavation into a remarkable narrative history. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A family's history reveals the roots of America's "capitalist ethos."Drawing on abundant archival sources, Stout (American Religious History/Yale Univ.; Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War, 2006, etc.) presents a detailed history of the fortunes and aspirations of a single American family, the Andersons of Kentucky, from 1750 to 1888, arguing that land ownership was central to their lives as participants in "the American experiment in republican capitalism." The Andersons' quest for land forms a recurring theme, as do the worry and stress that land ownership entails. "Land was the lifeblood of the young nation," writes the author, "but land was jeopardized by the markets and was the source of unending anxiety." The clan's patriarch was Richard Clough Anderson Sr., who in 1783 was elected to the post of surveyor general, "literally measuring America inch by inch and rod by rod to impose order on the land and make possible prosperity for its ambitious citizens." Those citizens were white males whose land lust entailed the removal of Native nations by force and whose prosperity depended on slaves. The Andersons were slave owners, and though Stout maintains that their "intimate association with land, property, and anxiety" was "not exceptional for their time," they represent "a broad swath of movers and shakers" rather than ordinary citizens and therefore limit the reach of Stout's generalizations. With little documentation for women's lives, the narrative mainly chronicles the Anderson men's political affiliations, familial squabbles, participation in the Civil War, and responses to a succession of financial panics. Clough's namesake, Richard Jr., beset by money troubles, risked his family's well-being to pay off debts and acquire land by taking a well-paid consulship in Colombia; his decision to move to a country with poor medical treatment led to his wife's death and, eventually, his own. After Richard died, his brother, a Harvard-educated lawyer, became the new patriarch and a wealthy Ohio landowner. A sturdy but narrowly focused tale of American history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.