Eminent Americans and Patterns of National Character

The book Eminent Americans and Patterns of National Character attempts to re-define American National Character through a reading of the autobiographies of four eminent personalities of America – Benjamin Franklin. Henry Adams, Lincoln Steffens and Eleanor Roosevelt. Though no effort has made to re-define American National Character conclusively, the book tries to touch upon certain character traits that are common to most Americans. The two prominent types of Americans discovered there are the skeptics and the progressives, the former represented by such figures as Henry Adams and Lincoln Steffens and the latter by Benjamin Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.