There was a time, early on in our country when we didn’t have some of the great schools that we have now. To become a doctor, for instance, most students had to travel to medical schools outside of this country. However, they brought back what they learned elsewhere and built on it here. Likewise, there wasn’t much of an American art culture in the early days of the country. One place seemed to draw people interested in the arts, and that was Paris.

David McCullough’s non-fiction novel, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris details what it was like to be an American in the early years of our country and travel to Paris in search of something more. Medical students traveled looking for a more comprehensive study of the healing arts, and found it at the École de Médecine, the Sorbonne, and other Parisian schools. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was one of those students, who took the journey to Paris in 1833. When he returned to the United States, he introduced many medical reforms, including the use of a stethoscope. Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first female doctor, also trained in Paris during this time.

The real attraction, though, was the carefree attitude of the Parisians themselves, and their appreciation of the arts. Many talented American painters of the era traveled to study in Paris as well as visit the museums there. Many of the famous people McCullough follows in the book spend time at the Louvre copying works by the masters as part of their education. The rest of the time is spent with wine and women. Paris, at the time, was way ahead of the United States in human rights as well as the arts.

The most unique story here is that of Samuel Morse, who started out in Paris wanting to paint. McCullough details how he went from painting in the Louvre and being friends with writer James Fenimore Cooper to inventing the code he would be famous for. Others cover in the book include writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassat, Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Healy the portrait painter with little money, who painted Abraham Lincoln, the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the politician George Sumner, and pianist Louis Moreau-Gottschalk from New Orleans. 

Much of McCullough’s sources seem to be letters that were kept by the people who received them. He cites excerpts that detail what life was like in Paris. Most of the people who traveled there were from wealthy families and they could write home for more money when they found themselves enjoying Parisian life a bit too much. There were only a few, such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens who came from a humble background.

In the earlier part of the 19th century, the journey was a harrowing one. McCullough also covers this as he talks about the invention of the steamship which made traveling across the Atlantic much less daunting. By the end of the century, with cables laid across the Atlantic, it was also easy to send telegrams back and forth as well.

France was also undergoing its own changes during this time. Napoleon had been deposed, but there was always a fear of that militaristic regime returning. There were various forms of government tested out and revolutions occurred, some more violent than others. The Franco-Prussian War took place. The American Civil War breaks out, and some Americans return to fight while others observe from a distance. We get the building of the Eiffel Tower (it was only supposed to be a temporary structure), France giving the United States the Statue of Liberty, and France’s success with the Suez Canal and missteps with the Panama Canal.

This is a sweet point in history as so much changes from 1830 to 1900. There were so many advances made, and the artists of the time lived very interesting lives as they chronicled them in various ways. Hearing what went into crafting a brass sculpture was so interesting.

Edward Hermann narrates the audiobook and does a terrific job. I enjoyed his narration a lot. It was clear and unemotional. I didn’t feel like he was trying to act a part or put his own feelings into the reading. This wasn’t as long as some of McCullough’s other works, and I listened to it over the course of about a month. I found it to be very interesting as well as entertaining. I never heard much about Americans in Paris, save for a few stories here and there. That so many people who would have an impact on what would become “American culture” studied and lived there for at least part of their lives means it’s a topic that needs covering if we are to understand how many things came to be. I highly recommend it.