Pulitzer-winning historian Daniel Walker Howe dies at 88

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel Walker Howe, best known for his chronicle of early U.S. change “What Hath God Wrought,” has died at 88, according to a spokesman for the University of California, Los Angeles.

The spokesman said Howe died on Dec. 25. Additional details were not immediately available, the Associated Press reported.

Howe won the Pulitzer in 2008 for “What Hath God Wrought,” a book associated with an Oxford University Press American history series that spans decades. The AP story described the work as an account of the technological and social changes in the United States in the first half of the 19th century, and said the book ran to about 900 pages.

In covering the years 1815 through 1848—from the end of the War of 1812 to the dawn of organized feminism in the United States—the book traced multiple developments, including the westward expansion of a young nation and the period’s debates over slavery. The AP said Howe followed the rise of Andrew Jackson and modern political parties, the overturning of an elite presidential order that dated to George Washington, and an escalating conflict over slavery that would lead to armed conflict.

The AP reported that the book’s title came from a biblical phrase used for the first telegraph message sent in 1844, reflecting a broader theme of accelerated information and infrastructure change. It said newspapers and books proliferated as printing became cheaper and mail service improved, while roads, bridges, canals and other public works projects modernized the country.

At the same time, the AP said resistance arose in the South, where leading politicians opposed “internal improvements” out of fear those projects would undermine slavery. The report quoted Howe writing that “Internal improvements could be opposed for reasons that had nothing to do with their economic effects,” adding that some people felt their stake in the status quo was threatened by any innovation—especially federal intervention.

The AP also placed Howe’s book within the context of other historical writing and publishing decisions. It said a New Yorker review in 2007 by historian Jill Lepore called “What Hath God Wrought” “a heroic attempt at synthesizing a century and a half of historical writing,” and noted that “What God Hath Wrought” was not Oxford editor C. Vann Woodward’s first choice for the series. The AP reported that Woodward had rejected Charles Sellers’ “The Market Revolution” as “too negative,” though Oxford later released “The Market Revolution” as a separate volume in 1991.

The Associated Press said Howe studied under Sellers at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s but developed a different view of the era. It reported that Howe found innovation acted less as a destroyer of old ties and more as a force for democracy, and that he dedicated “What God Hath Wrought” to John Quincy Adams, describing Adams as Jackson’s bitter rival in presidential elections and his opposite in personal background.

The AP reported that in 2007 Howe told the National Review he had not understood “how often improvements in material terms fostered improvements in moral terms,” and said he added that people who encouraged economic diversification and development also supported measures such as “more humane laws,” wider access to education, “a halt to the expansion of slavery,” and sometimes “greater equality for women.”

Howe taught at several institutions, beginning with Yale University in 1966. The AP said he continued at UCLA from 1973 to 1993 and taught at Oxford University from 1993 to 2002. The report said Howe married Sandra Fay Shumway in 1961 and had three children: Christopher, Rebecca and Stephen.

Born in Ogden, Utah, and raised in Denver, the AP said Howe recalled loving history since age 6 after his father told him about “Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants to fight the Romans,” as he told the Harvard Crimson in 2009. It said he majored in history and literature at Harvard University and received his doctorate in history from Berkeley in 1966, and that he described being asked to write “What Hath God Wrought” as appealing because it gave him the chance to write for general readers.

In remarks attributed to Howe in the AP report, the historian wrote about how greatness might be perceived at different times—first through the preservation of the Union, industrial might and other achievements, and later through how the dreams of the 1848 feminists and abolitionists were realized. The AP said he also wrote that “History works on a long time scale,” and that “at any given moment we can perceive directions but imperfectly.”