John Fiske

John Fiske (1842-1901), American philosopher and historian, was responsible for applying the Darwinian theory of evolution to philosophical and historical studies in the United States.

Born Edmund Fisk Green (he later changed his name) on March 30, 1842, in Hartford, Conn., he was from an early age extremely bookish. His investigation of current scientific theories led him to doubt the validity of orthodox Christianity. He entered Harvard in 1860 but was disappointed to find the curriculum old-fashioned; he displeased college authorities with his unorthodox religious views.

After graduation Fiske entered Harvard Law School and passed his bar exam in 1864. He soon turned from practice of law to writing to solve his financial difficulties. In 1869 he obtained a teaching position at Harvard and in 1872 became assistant librarian. At the same time he also began the career of public lecturer that he would continue until his death.

Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874) revealed his basic philosophical premise: societies evolve like biological organisms, and the laws of their evolution, like the Darwinian laws of biological evolution, can be discovered. Though Fiske never succeeded in formulating any laws of history, he never doubted their existence.

At this point Fiske turned from philosophy to the study of history. In preparing a series of lectures on American history in 1879, he treated the United States as the climax of a historical evolution toward a free democratic republic. Thereafter he worked in the field of American colonial and Revolutionary history. His best-known work, The Critical Period of American History (1888), dealt with the period between the end of the Revolutionary War and the adoption of the Constitution. He published several books during the next decade.

By the 1890s Fiske had a considerable reputation as a lecturer, his previously unorthodox religious views having mellowed so that his middle-class public regarded him as a reconciler of science and Christianity. His scholarly reputation declined, however, as his popularity increased; professional historians noted the lack of original research in his books. While his mind was not deep, it was broad, and he had a genius for explaining other men's ideas clearly.

For the last few years of his life Fiske suffered from bad health, complicated by obesity. He died on July 4, 1901, in Gloucester, Mass.

Further Reading

Unquestionably the best book on Fiske is Milton Berman, John Fiske: The Evolution of a Popularizer (1961). John Spencer Clark, The Life and Letters of John Fiske (2 vols., 1917), is not as critical or judicious but includes substantial selections from Fiske's correspondence. Jennings B. Sanders's essay on Fiske in William T. Hutchinson, ed., The Marcus W. Jernegan Essays in American Historiography (1937), places Fiske in the development of American historical writing. □

Fiske, John (1842–1901), Connecticut‐born author, lecturer at Harvard, and professor of American history at Washington University (St. Louis). As a young man he was a follower of Comte and Herbert Spencer and, through such works as The Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874), Darwinism and Other Essays (1879), and The Destiny of Man Viewed in the Light of His Origin (1884), became the chief popularizer of Victorian science and philosophy in the U.S. After 1879 he was principally known as a lecturer and author, but his importance was that of a popularizer, not of an original thinker. In The Critical Period of American History, 1783–1789 (1888) and The Beginnings of New England (1889), he attempted to apply Comtean ideas of sociological evolution to American history. He helped edit Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography (1887–89), and his later works include Civil Government in the United States (1890), The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War (1900), Essays: Historical and Literary (1902), and New France and New England (1902). His Letters were published in 1940.

Fiske, John (1744–97) naval officer and merchant seaman, born in Salem, Massachusetts. Fiske led numerous successful expeditions against enemy shipping as part of a small provincial (later state) navy established by the Massachusetts General Court (1776) to resist English encroachments on colonial liberties.