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It is within human nature to value tradition. Richard L. Bushman, in his The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities, analyzes this natural code of behavior by extensively analyzing American gentility and habits in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bushman argues that the refinement of America ultimately began around 1690. He argues that Americans carried across the sea a desire for gentility and refinement that dated back to the Renaissance. Continuing into the eighteenth century, Americans began to selectively emulate upper class England and seek architectural and material luxuries. It is interesting to read these particular arguments because they are applicable to my thesis on music of the American Revolutionary era: Americans knowingly borrowed traditional English tunes and applied their own lyrics to use as parodies of well-known Old World music. Reading Bushman’s theories on traditional continuity only helped solidify one of my arguments that members of colonial society sought to emulate English traditions to serve their own purposes of distinguishing class and instituting themselves as models of cultural significance.
That being said, the aspects of culture and society that Americans chose to imitate proved ridiculous at times. I agree with Ian and his comment about the ridiculousness of etiquette books, that “codified polite society” by giving specific instructions on aspects of personal expression (38). The illustrations of children provided on page 294 depicting youngsters with high foreheads, tiny feet, and curls are anything but aesthetically pleasing. The anecdote Bushman provides related to Charles Ridgelys’ letter is one example of such absurdity. Writing every letter with “Honored Sir” and ending with “I am, Honored Sir, your ever Dutiful & loving son, Chas. Greenberry Ridgeley” appears tedious and pretentious from a twenty-first century concept of correspondence (10). Then again, I do often use sarcasm and formality in my letters and I do own a copy of Singing: For Dummies.
Bushman writes, “without knowing where precisely, they believed in a superior life somewhere and aspired to emulate that existence”, and his comment only hints at irony regarding republican ideals and equality (37). With Revolutionary concepts against aristocracy and English “superiority” and our Constitution’s rejection of nobility, it is interesting to see such emulation and imitation taking hold. I do, however, agree with his argument that the process of refinement was somewhat democratic and therefore republican in nature. Making luxury and refinement available to the masses and blurring clear class divisions in fact made the process democratic and equalizing in some aspects.
I enjoyed reading Bushman’s analysis of seventeenth and eighteenth century culture and its applicability to material objects, households, and aesthetics. I found little in his work, however, to apply to nature or to the environment. His work was more of a social and cultural history from a time period I enjoy studying. I think his arguments are sound and his work is as an interesting study of human nature and its interactions with culture.