4.9 The Development of an American Culture

LEARNING OBJECTIVE: Explain how and why a new national culture developed from 1800 to 1848.

INTRODUCTION

• America’s early culture reflected that of Britian and other european countries (where settlers had come from)

  • Independence from the early 19th century—→ Americans increasingly developing their own distinct culture

    - their culture had a stong nationalistic tone

  • However, Americans continued to be influenced by their European heritage and sought new ideas from europe.

    - growing national culture emerged the same time as regional variations of it became increasingly evident.

CULTURAL NATIONALISM

• New generation of Americans had concerns that differed from those of the nation’s founders.

  • Young were excited about westward expansion

    - had little interest in european politics after the end of the napoleonic wars

    - beleived the young country was entering era of unlimited prosperity

  • Patriotic themes were infused with every aspect of American society

    - included art to schoolbooks

    - art of heroes of the American revolution were captured by painting by Gilvert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale, and Josh Trumbull.

    - fictionalized biography of the virtues of Washington was widely read

    - Expanding of public schools embraced blue-backed speller by Noah Webster (premoted patriotism).

  • Basic ideas and ideals of nationalism and patriotism would dominate most of the 19th century.

A CHANGING CULTURE: IDEAS, THE ARTS, AND LITERATURE

• During the early 19th century in Europe, artist and writers shifted away from the enlightenment emphases on reason, order, and balance—→ intution, feelings, heroism, and nature

  • Known as the idea of Romanticism

    - expressed most in US by transcendentalist (small group of new england thinkers)

THE TRANSCENDENTALIST

• Writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau questioned the doctrines that established chruches and business practices of the merchant class.

  • Argued for the mystical and intuitive way of thinking

    - way of discovering one’s inner self and looking for the essence of God in Nature

    - view challenged materialism of American socierty (suggested that artistic expression was more important than the pursuit of wealth)

  • Valued individualism highly and downplayed importance of organized instiutions.

    - supported a variety of reforms, especially the abolitionist movement.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)

• Popular American writer and speaker

  • His essays and lectures expressed the individualistic and nationalistic spirit of Americans

    - urged them not to imitate European culture, but to create distinctive American culture

    - argued for self-reliance, independent thinking, and spiritual matters over material ones

  • He was born as a northerner who lived in Concord, Massachusetts.

    - Emerson became a leading critic of slavery in the 1850s

    - ardent supporter of the union during the Civil War.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)

• Transcendentalist philosopher, pioneer, ecologist, conservationist

  • Conducted a 2-year experiment of living simply in a cabin in the woods outside the town

    - used the observations of nature to help him search for truth about life and nature—→ his thoughts were published in a Walden (book he is best known for)

  • Often detatched from politics but was strongly against the US war against Mexico

    - refused to pay taxes supporting the war (Thoreau was arrested & jailed)

    - Thoreau’s reflections on the nessisity for disobeying unjust laws and accepting penaltiy—→ Civil Disobedience

  • Thoreau’s ideas and actions inspired non-violent movements

    - Indian-independence movement (Mohandas Gandhi)

    - Civil rights movement (Martin Luther King Jr.)

BROOK FARM

• George Ripler (Protestant minister) launced communal experiment as Brook Farm Massachusetts

  • Reflected transcendentalist ideal

    - goal was to acheive “more natural union between intellectual and mannual labor”

    - Intellectuals like Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parkers, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, lived at Brook Farm.

    - Remembered for its atmosphere of artisitic creativty, innovative school, and appeal to elite

OTHER COMMUNAL EXPERIMENTS

• During the antebellum period, many Americans experimented with creating utopian societies/ideal communities

  • Expanding lands of the US, providied ground for hundreds of experimental communities

    - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took communal effort

    - Brook Farm sen an example for humanistic, secular experiment

    - communities were short-lived, but reflect diveristy of reform ideas

SHAKERS

• One of the earliest religious communal movements

  • Shakers held property in common and kept women and men separate (forbid marriage and sexual relations)

    - shakers died out mid 1900s

THE AMANA COLONIES

• Germans who belonged to relgious reform movement known as Pietism

  • Emphasized simple communal living, allowed for marriage

    - continue to prosper but no longer practice communal living

NEW HARMONY

• Secular (nonreligious) experiment was the work of reformer Robert Own

  • Hoped to provide an answer to problems of inequity and aleination from industrial revolution

    - failed due to finanicial problems and disagreements

FOURIER PHALANXES

• Housing communities where people shared work

  • Reflected theories of French socialist Charles Fourier

    - addressed fierceling competive society

    - movement died out as Americans proved to become more indivudalistc

ART AND LITERATURE

• Democratic and reforming impulses of Jackson’s era were expressed in painting, architecture, and literature

PAINTING

• Genre painting portrayed ordinanry everyday life

  • George Caleb Bingham

    - common people in various settings, doing domestic chores

  • William S. Mout

    - rurual compositions

  • Thomas Cole & Fredrick Chruch

    - heroic beauty of American landscapes

    - Hudson River School expressed Romantic Age’s fixation on nature

ARCHITECTURE

• Inspired by democracy of classical Athens

  • American Architectst adapted greek styles to glorify democratic spirit

    - applied to public buildings, banks, hotels, and some private homes

LITERATURE

• Different writers helped create literature both romantic and American

  • After war of 1812, Americans became nationalist and eager for works about American themes and writers

    - Washinton Irving (Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow)

    - James Fenimore Cooper (Leatherstocking Tales)

    - Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter)

    - Herman Melville (Moby-Dick)

    - Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart)