It tells the story of the divide and conflict between English and American intellectual elites during the Civil War.<\/p>\n
While the Civil War brewed in the United States, major thinkers from both New England and across the pond came into conflict over their ideas about equality. Many leading English thinkers sided with the Confederacy because of their ideas\u00a0regarding\u00a0equality and race.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe British empire stood on a foundation of white supremacy as did the Confederacy. Both\u00a0maintained\u00a0a social hierarchy based on class,\u00a0caste\u00a0and race,\u201d Dr. Gougeon explained. \u201cThe South was essentially an oligarchy ruled by aristocratic gentlemen who resembled their British counterparts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those ideas caused thinkers such as Thomas Carlyle, Matthew\u00a0Arnold\u00a0and John Ruskin to clash with their New England counterparts such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell\u00a0Holmes\u00a0and Ralph Waldo Emerson.<\/p>\n
That is where Dr. Gougeon\u2019s specialties come into play, as he specializes in studies of Emerson, one of America\u2019s most prominent literary figures and a leader of the Transcendentalist movement of the 19th century.<\/p>\n
He served as president of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society and received the society\u2019s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2008.<\/p>\n
Writing\u00a0this book was no small undertaking for Dr. Gougeon, as over 10 years of research resulted in\u00a0an initial\u00a0draft that was well over half a million words, but he eventually managed to shave it down to a book of approximately 400 pages with 1,200 footnotes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe original manuscript was basically a Gutenberg Bible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/gougeon-book.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
In writing \u201cOld England, New England, and the Civil War,\u201d Dr. Gougeon shows that certain ideas that are considered radical by some today can\u00a0actually be\u00a0traced back to the nation\u2019s origins and the declaration that \u201call men are created equal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope they will\u00a0see that what\u00a0today is referred to as D.E.I. (diversity, equality, inclusion) is not a new idea. It was ingrained in the nation\u2019s DNA from the beginning. Bringing it forth in our society has always involved struggle,\u201d Dr. Gougeon said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Gougeon is the author of \u201cVirtue\u2019s Hero: Emerson, Antislavery and Reform;\u201d \u201cEmerson and Eros: The Making of a Cultural Hero;\u201d and \u201cEmerson\u2019s Truth, Emerson\u2019s Wisdom: Transcendental Advice for Everyday Life,\u201d among numerous other publications including journals such as The New England Quarterly, American Literature, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, Studies in the American Renaissance, Modern Language Studies and others. His essays have appeared in various collections including The Oxford Handbook to Transcendentalism, Emerson Bicentennial Essays, The Cambridge Companion to Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau at 200: Essays and Reassessments, A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in Context, Teaching\u00a0Emerson\u00a0and others. In 2015, he received the University\u2019s Excellence in Scholarly Publication Award.<\/p>\n
During his distinguished career at Scranton, Dr. Gougeon served as a member of the Faculty Senate for 31 years, including as a member of the Senate Committee on Shared Governance and Leadership. He also served as chair of the University Senate and as a member of the Board on Rank and Tenure and the University Handbook Committee.<\/p>\n
Dr. Gougeon earned his bachelor\u2019s degree from St. Mary\u2019s University Halifax, and his master\u2019s degree and Ph.D. from the\u00a0University of\u00a0Massachusetts at Amherst.<\/p>\n
Marcus Smith ’27, Schuylkill Haven, is an English and theatre double major at Scranton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Marcus Smith ’27, Student Correspondent Len Gougeon, Ph.D., had a long and storied career in the Department…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[30650,8216,19370,78729,4995,78730,178,180,179,274],"class_list":["post-175841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-author","tag-book","tag-civil-war","tag-len-gougeon","tag-new-england","tag-old-england","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-the-university-of-scranton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}