Americanon by Jess McHugh

AMERICANON by Jess McHugh is a work of non-fiction which seeks to provide “An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books.”  Books about books are always fun and this one immediately calls to mind titles with similar lists like Promised Land (2008) by Jay Parini and Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? (2008) by Jenny Bond. As one might expect, there is even a bit of overlap in chosen titles (Parini also selected Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and How to Win Friends and Influence People while Bond also wrote about Emily Post’s Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home). Setting fiction aside, McHugh has focused more narrowly on “how-to” texts – “dictionaries, school primers, cookbooks, how-to guides, and self-help manuals …. that underneath their surface are the blueprints for American values that endured long after publication.” I was initially drawn to her selection of The McGuffey Readers – I have found memories of sharing those with students on Pioneer Days at our local elementary school. And, I learned quite a bit reading about Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook, including how female home economists like Marjorie Child Husted were treated at General Mills. Referring to her collection, McHugh readily notes “a striking absence of nonwhite authors and LGBTQ authors,” saying “privilege serves as an echo chamber in which only certain voices emerge.” An entertaining piece of cultural history, it would be interesting to see the “sequel” to AMERICANON; what other titles (maybe Our Bodies, Ourselves or Black Like Me or Silent Spring or All the President’s Men) have had impact in the past few decades? What titles will our current students call to mind (perhaps The New Jim Crow or Lean In or Between the World and Me or The Sixth Extinction)?