Liberty Lifestyle: America Was Built by Amateurs

"We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond." ~ Gwendolyn Brooks.

America was still very much an experiment when it became an independent nation. There was no established blueprint for what the country would become, and many of the people helping shape it had little formal training for the roles they eventually took on. In the nation's earliest years, liberty offered more than independence from Britain. It gave people the opportunity to learn, experiment, and help build a country that was still figuring out what it could become.

A Nation of Amateurs

America was a land of the unknown. There were indigenous people, unfamiliar crops, harsh weather conditions, and unfamiliar terrain. Settlers had a lot to learn, and many of those who were responsible for setting the nation on its path were amateurs, at least by today’s standards.

George Washington, for example, became the country’s first president, yet he never attended college and had very limited formal schooling. He was just 11 years old when his father passed away, and there wasn’t money for education. Instead, he learned from tutors and studied geometry and trigonometry to prepare to become a surveyor.

A lack of formal education didn’t mean a lack of education, and this is the same pattern seen throughout early America. Abraham Lincoln had less than a year of formal training, according to the Library of Congress. He was an avid reader and taught himself enough law to become an attorney.

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Thomas Edison only went to school for a few months, according to the National Park Service. He learned reading, writing, and arithmetic from his mother, then was self-taught through extensive reading on his own. He started working at age 13, selling newspapers and candy on trains, and spent his free time reading scientific and technical books. In other words, he learned by reading and experimenting. Eventually, he held 1,093 US patents.

Would you fly on a new airplane designed by brothers who built bicycles but didn’t have an engineering degree? As told by the Smithsonian, neither Wilbur nor Orville Wright graduated from high school. They worked in printing and later opened a business where they manufactured their own bicycles. From there, they continued to study aviation and created the first sustained controlled flight in December 1903.

And then we have Benjamin Franklin. Printer, publisher, writer, inventor, and scientist, Franklin could be the poster child of America and her creators. He was never formally trained as a scientist and didn’t have a university science degree, yet his accomplishments moved a country forward in progress and thought. Besides his inventions, he helped establish America’s first successful lending library, helped organize Philadelphia’s Union Fire Company, participated in establishing what became the University of Pennsylvania, and was involved with the state’s hospital.

America Encouraged Inventors

The founders understood that to develop a new country and make it great, they had to be willing to experiment and explore. The Constitution states: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” To help in this regard, the country developed institutions that encourage ordinary people to experiment and invent.

The Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center describes what happened during the 1800s as a “democratization of invention.” Historically, patents in countries such as Britain and France had been expensive and usually favored wealthy elites. The American system was accessible and inexpensive, opening doors for the average citizen.

French writer Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through America in 1831 and 1832 and became fascinated with the way Americans formed organizations themselves. In his book Democracy in America, Tocqueville wrote: “Americans of all ages constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations, in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small,” the Library of Congress posted on its website. Furthermore, “Tocqueville argued that citizens in a democracy rely on associations to bring them into shared concerns with their neighbors and to empower them with a voice to influence public opinion. Association-making, he claimed, was the ‘mother science’ in a democratic society, the piece of social know-how that makes a democracy flourish.”

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Americans didn't necessarily wait for government or an established institution to solve every local problem. They created what was needed, a tradition begun by the Founding Fathers and continued by those who came after.

The American Frontier was a time of growth and struggles. Settlers had to carve out a living on unfamiliar land with new and uncertain crops. People often wore many hats. A farmer might also know carpentry, food preservation, and basic medicine. Women usually had extensive knowledge involving a variety of skills like sewing, household medicine, preserving foods, and so on. Self-reliance wasn’t an inspirational goal; it was a practical necessity.

Today, YouTube teaches us how to replace a garbage disposal. Two hundred years ago, the tutorial was probably your neighbor saying: “Well, I've never built a barn either, but let's figure it out.” Americans now have access to more information than Edison, Franklin, Lincoln, or the Wright brothers could have imagined.

But today’s message to society is much different than the time of our ancestors. While Edison and others were experimenting, today the message seems to say, “Don’t attempt it unless you’re qualified.” There are certainly professions where training and credentials are necessary, but somewhere along the way, being an amateur became almost an insult rather than a starting point. Many of the people who helped shape America began without a degree, a title, or an expert standing behind them. They learned because they were curious, tried because they saw possibilities, and sometimes failed before they got it right. But it is those successes and failures that shaped what America is today.