American Thumb-prints: Mettle of Our Men and Women — Story, Setting & Ideas

The University as Microcosm

In 'The University of Hesperus,' Stephens turns her attention to the University of Kansas, where she taught. She sketches the institution's founding and early struggles, noting how its development mirrored the state's ambitions. The essay is less a history than a character study: she describes the 'mettle' of faculty and students, their 'zeal' and 'executive' energy, and the tension between frontier pragmatism and academic ideals. Stephens does not shy from criticism, pointing to 'phlegmatic' resistance to change and the 'doctrinaire' tendencies she elsewhere attributes to Kansas politics. The university, for her, is a laboratory of American character—a place where 'experimental meliorism' meets the hard work of building a civilization.

Misogyny and Its Antagonists

In 'Up-to-Date Misogyny,' Stephens confronts contemporary attacks on women with a blend of erudition and irony. She cites a Latin professor who dismisses women's voices as 'neurotic caterwauling,' then coolly notes that 'specialists in nervous difficulties have not yet determined there is marked variation between neurotic caterwauling of hysterical women and neurotic caterwauling of hysterical men.' She draws on historical examples—Cicero's 'shrieks,' Byron's 'wails,' Marie Bashkirtseff's 'megalomaniac whine'—to argue that misogyny is not a rational critique but a 'reverse side' of idealization. Her method is comparative: she refuses to let men's emotional excesses escape scrutiny. The essay is a model of measured polemic, using logic and literary reference to dismantle double standards.

Franklin's 'Plagiarizing Humors'

The final essay, 'Plagiarizing Humors of Benjamin Franklin,' examines Franklin's use of borrowed material. Stephens argues that Franklin's genius lay not in originality but in his ability to adapt and repurpose—a 'plagiarizing humor' that was itself a form of invention. She traces his sources in Poor Richard's almanac and other writings, showing how he transformed proverbs and anecdotes into distinctly American wisdom. The essay is less a defense of plagiarism than a meditation on creativity in a new nation: Franklin, like the Kansas settlers, built something new from available materials. Stephens's tone is admiring but precise, avoiding hagiography in favor of analysis.

Stephens's essays reward readers who attend to her method: she moves from local instance to general principle, using specific details—a political movement, a university dispute, a misogynist remark, a Franklin aphorism—to illuminate broader patterns of American character. Her voice is learned but direct, skeptical of cant whether from reformers or reactionaries. The book is best read as a series of interconnected arguments rather than a unified thesis; each essay stands alone, but together they form a portrait of a nation in the making, seen through the eyes of a sharp-eyed participant.

I keep thinking about how American Thumb-prints talks about the quiet stubbornness in all of us, that Puritan thread we can’t quite shake. It reminded me of an old afternoon spent with The crowd — Background and Themes, where the same loneliness shows up, only sideways, in how we lose ourselves among others. Funny how those two books sit together like old friends. We never quite escape either, do we?