George Bancroft

George Bancroft (1800-1891) was an eminent American historian and a diplomat and politician. He also founded the U.S. Naval Academy.

George Bancroft was born in Worcester, Mass., on Oct. 3, 1800. His father was a Unitarian minister. At 17 George went from Harvard to the University of Göttingen, Germany, where he received his doctorate in 1820. Returning in 1822 to America, he briefly joined the Harvard faculty, teaching Greek.

Unable to reform Harvard's teaching methods, Bancroft left to found (with J. G. Cogswell) a progressive school at Northampton, Mass. For 11 years the Round Hill School was a model of advanced pedagogy, attracting wide attention. For much of his life Bancroft was important in acquainting Americans with German culture.

Bancroft had left the school in 1831, having been drawn to politics and history. To the dismay of fellow intellectuals he ardently supported Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. In 1837 he was named collector of the Port of Boston. Now high in the councils of the Democratic party, he was appointed secretary of the Navy by President James Polk. Bancroft instituted reforms in the service and founded the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md.

From 1846 to 1849 Bancroft was minister to England, where he gathered additional materials to continue the history he had been working on for many years. The first volume of Bancroft's History of the United States from the Discovery of the Continent appeared in 1834. In the next 40 years nine more volumes were published, carrying the narrative to the close of the American Revolution.

In his first volume Bancroft stated his main theme, which, with variations, echoed throughout the history: "The spirit of the colonies demanded freedom from the beginning." Like his fellow romantic historians John Lothrop Motley and William Prescott, Bancroft believed that liberty and progress had found their highest fulfillment in the United States.

Bancroft's writing was at its best in detailing the events during the 2 years leading up to July 4, 1776. In these pages he evoked with great skill the spirit of the Revolution. From 1849 to 1867 Bancroft remained busy at his history. In 1867 President Andrew Johnson, indebted to Bancroft as ghost writer, named him minister to Berlin, where he remained until 1874, delighting in the company of Bismarck and distinguished German historians.

After Bancroft's diplomatic career ended, he published the two-volume History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America (1882). Now past 80 he continued to write in the spirit of his youth. It was his "loud and uncritical Americanism" which repelled some of his contemporaries as well as later critics. His scholarship was not impeccable, his prose too lush. Yet he performed a remarkable pioneer service in organizing the materials of American history, giving it coherence and a foundation on which later scholars built. One of them said that they could see farther because they stood on his shoulders.

Fame and wealth from his histories came to the vigorous little man who stood tall in his country's esteem. His many admirers joined in mourning his death, in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 17, 1891.

Further Reading

The best biography of Bancroft is Russel B. Nye, George Bancroft: Brahmin Rebel (1944). Chapters on Bancroft appear in Michael Kraus, The Writing of American History (1953), and in William T. Hutchinson, ed., The Marcus W. Jernegan Essays in American Historiography, selection by Watt Stewart (1958). John S. Bassett, The Middle Group of American Historians (1917), and John F. Jameson, The History of Historical Writing in America (1891), are critical of Bancroft's work. An excellent analysis of Bancroft's writing is in David Levin, History as Romantic Art: Bancroft, Prescott, Motley and Parkman (1959).

Additional Sources

Handlin, Lilian, George Bancroft, the intellectual as Democrat, New York: Harper & Row, 1984. □

Bancroft, George (1800–1891) historian, politician, diplomat.Educated at Exeter Academy and Harvard College (B.A., 1817; M.A. in divinity, 1818), Bancroft then pursued philological studies in Germany and received a Ph.D. from Göttingen in 1820. Following a continental tour, Bancroft returned to America in 1822 to serve at Harvard as a Latin tutor and an occasional preacher. His simultaneous literary ventures made him a leading magazine writer, translator, and poet. Bancroft also joined Joseph Cogswell in founding the Round Hill School (1823), where he served as headmaster, fund‐raiser, and educational reformer. In 1827, Bancroft married Sarah Dwight. She died in 1837; and in 1838 Bancroft married Elizabeth Davis Bliss. Involvement in Dwight family economic enterprises transformed an impecunious intellectual into a gentleman of means.

Bancroft's belief that a democracy required the guidance of men of letters encouraged political involvement; his assumption that history revealed God's plan for humanity encouraged inquiries into the nation's past. In 1834, the first volume of his History of the United States appeared, establishing Bancroft's reputation as the nation's leading contemporary historian. The democratic ethos shaped Bancroft's scholarship as much as his political allegiances. Neither conflicted with his immersion in western land speculation, Dwight banking activities, Washington lobbying, or Massachusetts politics. Bancroft helped cement Democratic party alliances with workingmen's organizations, disaffected national Republicans, and Anti‐Masons. His reward was the collectorship of the Boston Customhouse, a growing national reputation, and ties to successive Democratic administrations in Washington. Bancroft's role at the national Democratic convention in 1849 led to his appointment as secretary of the navy in President James Knox Polk's cabinet. Bancroft played a pivotal role in the Mexican War, firmly espoused Manifest Destiny, and was instrumental in establishing the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. After a term as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain (1846–1849), Bancroft settled in New York City, where he continued his historical work. Appointed minister plenipotentiary to Prussia by President Andrew Johnson in 1867, he lived in Berlin for the next seven years. Returning to the United States, he settled in Washington, D.C., where the tenth and final volume of History of the United States appeared in 1874. A six‐volume revised edition appeared in 1876, followed by The History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States in 1882. Despite advancing age, Bancroft remained a presence on the Washington political and social scene as an elder dignitary and statesman who had witnessed the nation's transformation in the course of nearly a century and had brilliantly recorded its complex social and political evolution.
See also Anti‐Masonic Party; Historiography, American; Military, The; Military Service Academies.

Bibliography

Russel B. Nye , George Bancroft, Brahmin Rebel, 1944.
Lilian Handlin , George Bancroft: The Intellectual as Democrat, 1984.

Lilian Handlin

Bancroft, George (1800–91) navy secretary, scholar, and diplomat, born in Worcester, Massachusetts. As the secretary of the navy under President James K. Polk (1845–46), Bancroft was a founder of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and tried to streamline the navy department. Bancroft was instrumental in the acquisition of California, ordering the Pacific Naval Squadron in June 1845 to occupy San Francisco and other ports in case of war.

Bancroft, George (1800–91) US diplomat and historian. Bancroft was appointed secretary of the navy in 1845, and established the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He served as ambassador to Britain (1846–49) and to Germany (1867–74). His History of the United States (10 vols, 1834–74) is a classic account.