Mason Weems, Bibliopolist (February/March 1981 | Volume: 32, Issue: 2)

Mason Weems, Bibliopolist

AH article image

Authors: Garry Wills

Historic Era:

Historic Theme:

Subject:

February/March 1981 | Volume 32, Issue 2

 

Benjamin Franklin wrote what could be called America s first self-improvement manual. But Franklin trod the world stage, and his autobiography is a classic expression of Enlightenment ideals, too grand a thing to count Dale Carnegie’s books among its offspring. The true father of Carnegie, or of Norman Vincent Peale, was Mason Weems (1759–1825), the itinerant preacher and bibliopolist—he had the salesman’s trick of dignifying his trade with fancy names.

Though Weems is best known for his life of Washington, he also wrote popular biographies of Franklin himself, of William Penn, and of General Francis Marion. He also wrote, published, and peddled moral tracts, sermons tricked out as entertainments—the equivalent of Bishop Fulton Sheen s television shows in the 1950’s.

Weems was always intense in his methods, though rather vague in his aims. The vagueness clouds his early years: after his birth in Maryland, Weems went to Scotland (or somewhere) to become a surgeon (or something) and may have become a seaman (or may not). He returned to America during the Revolution, but made no effort to serve under the man he would later celebrate. Instead he chose to become an Anglican minister—at a time when this hinted of loyalty to the British crown as well as church. Characteristically determined in the short term, Weems went through many difficulties to be ordained in England. Then, characteristically feckless in the long term, he drifted through an aimless ministry for nine years.

But by 1793 he realized that selling Bibles was a way of making a living as well as preaching the gospel. From then on, he unabashedly made God and gain his twin goals. “Thank God, the Bible still goes well … I am agreeably surprised to find among the multitude such a spirit of veneration for the Bible. Good old Book! I hope we shall live by you in this world and in the world to come!!” A brisk trade was now his mission in life, and business setbacks weighed down his monosyllables like sins that oppressed the prophets: “God knows there is nothing I so dread as Dead stock , dull sales , back loads , and blank looks .” It is the salesman’s eternal lament, followed by words that skip: “But the Joy of my soul is quick and clean sales—heavy pockets, and light hearts.” Weems traveled Virginia, drawing most of his supplies from an Irish publisher in Philadelphia, Mathew Carey. The two men alternately blessed and cursed each other with get-rich-quick schemes and lagging performance—the latter sent Weems into rages of angry piety. Shipping problems led to pseudo-Ciceronian denunciation: “Quotuseunque, Catalina! how long, thou eldest born of confusion, how long wilt thou continue to send the books to South James River, and the invoice to the head waters of Patomak?”

 
 

Weems had a gift for self-dramatization that must have exhilarated