In recent years American scholars have made significant progress in rethinking the history of the United States after the Civil War. Although much of their effort has come to a focus on Reconstruction, new questions and new techniques of historical analysis have combined to revitalize examination of the era as a whole. Yet-certain specialized studies notwithstanding – relatively little has been done to reconceive the intellectual history of the period. In part, this situation probably reflects the disappointing character of most of postbellum thought, which boasts few such luminaries as the era of the American Revolution or that of the so-called American Renaissance. In part, it may also reflect the fact that study of the period revived at a time when intellectual history no longer seemed to represent the cutting edge of historical inquiry. In any case, the opinions and beliefs of late Victorian America have remained a stepchild of historical research while their adopted family has flourished.