Remembering
In Ashland, Maine,
youngsters join in the
1943 edition of the
town’s Memorial
Day parade.
70 AMERICAN HISTORY
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ESTraditions can be personal—the way the fam-
ily celebrates birthdays, say—and shared by the
nation, such as saluting the flag or feasting on
the fourth Thursday in November. All convey
community and continuity. Of course, honesty
demands acknowledgment that this link to the
past is inexact and mutable. Every family
Thanksgiving evolves as members join, folks
move, and recipes graduate from experiment
to keeper. So, too, with national traditions.
This topic fascinates historians and social
anthropologists. In Inventing American Tradi-
tion, anthropologist Jack David Eller mines
the resulting literature to retell the origin and
evolution of 30-some traditions, a category he
defines generously, from celebrating Mother’s
Day to using the word “OK” to wearing blue
jeans. The result, informative and delightful,
stirs thoughts about what we mean by “tradi-
tion” and what “tradition” means to us. As
Eller argues, “Traditions are a story we tell
ourselves about ourselves.”
Since the earliest European settlers,
keeping it
semi-real
Inventing American
Tradition: From
the Mayflower to
Cinco de Mayo
by Jack David Eller
Reaktion Books;
Chicago Press,
2018; $30
modern form. The Comstock Lode powered
San Francisco’s growth into an economic pow-
erhouse, fueling expansion. Beyond pursuing
his interests in the bluish-black ore of Virginia
City, Nevada, Mackay laid two transatlantic
telegraph cables and saw to the start of the
first trans-Pacific cable. Crouch paints his sub-
ject in colorful light, blending facts and style in
a gratifying and illuminating mix. —Jessianne
Castle writes in Clyde Park, Montana.
Americans have been ambivalent about tradi-
tion. “The early U.S. was overtly disinterested
in, almost hostile to, traditions and the past in
general,” Eller explains.
This was supposed to be the land whose
inhabitants, in the name of freedom, would
cast off confining Old-World ways—tradi-
tions, if you will. That changed abruptly with
Appomattox and the need to bind up a sun-
dered nation. “It was palpable that the coun-
try lacked and desperately needed tradition,”
Eller writes. Today’s Memorial Day was estab-
lished in 1868 to honor the Civil War dead on
both sides. Washington’s birthday was pro-
claimed a national holiday in 1879.
As the 19th century was turning into the
20th, the prevailing culture, encountering a
need to assimilate waves of immigrants, cre-
ated “patriotic” traditions such as the Pledge of
Allegiance and adoption of the “Star-Spangled
Banner” as the official anthem.
The United States was no longer a nation
unshackling itself from tradition but one
embracing and inventing tradition—a practice
that continues. We pretend we are following
historical paths, but, as Eller says, “Tradition is
and always has been more about the present
and the future than the past.” —Washington
journalist Daniel B. Moskowitz always wears
red on January 1 and green on March 17.