Deep Thinking in 19th Century America

By Glen Wallace

While there may currently be a dearth of broad deep thinking intellectualism amongst our citizenry, I don't think it has always been this way even within the breadth of America's short history. I'm basing this belief based on the public's reaction to the 19th century novel 'St. Elmo' by Augusta Jane Evans. I picked up a tattered copy of this book at an estate sale some years ago just because with a publication date of 1866 it would become the oldest book in my library. But I got started reading it and found it rather profound; constantly addressing many deep concepts. Reportedly this book reached a very fervent widespread degree of mainstream popularity to such a degree that many streets and children were named after the books heroine Edna Earl. This was no mere cult classic like 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' and yet 'St. Elmo' is at least as deep and maybe even a more difficult read.  In order for such a book to reach such mainstream popularity I've concluded that a very different mainstream social intellectual milieu existed at the time of its publication in terms of how people thought of deep concepts and their discussion and contemplation.