The Making of “Victorian” America

1. The Making of “Victorian” America America up to and in the nineteenth century J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

2. Overview • Historical (Global) Context • Culture and Society in 19th-century America Question What are the repeating trends and significant ideas in American history? J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

3. Historical (Global) Context The Making of a Nation Rethinking Globalisation J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

4. Before 1550 • Spain and Portugal: global naval powers • European rivalries • 1492: Columbus sailed the ocean blue • He died refusing to believe he hadn’t found India! • Destruction of the Aztec empire • 1524 onwards: French exploration of North American continent J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

5. 1500 - 1600 • English navigators make attempts to claim land • 1587: Roanoke colony • The lost colony • 1588: Spanish Armada defeated • Decline of Spanish supremacy J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

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7. The English are Sailing • Reasons for colonial enterprise: • Only the eldest son inherits • Poor flooding into the cities • Excess workers • Challenge Spanish domination • Religious differences • Problem: who’ll pay to set up a colony? • Solution: Joint-stock companies J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

8. The First English Colonies • Virginia company • 1607: Jamestown colony • Searched for gold, ignored farming • John Smith: “Work or starve” • Invalided back to England J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

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10. Failure? • 1609-10: The Starving Time • Financial failure • 1624: Virginia Company bankrupt • Colony came under royal rule J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

11. 1600 - 1700 • Growth of tobacco trade • Virginia settlement flourishes • Indentured servitude to man tobacco plantations • House of Burgesses • The New England colonies • 1620: the Mayflower and Plymouth colony J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

12. Plymouth Colony • Another accident: supposed to join Jamestown colonists • Lost at sea • Landed near Cape Cod • No charter to rule them • 1620: Mayflower compact • Independent rule! J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

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14. Thanksgiving • Landed in November = no harvest • 44 survived out of 102 • How did the colony survive? • Squanto • Alliance with Massasoit Indians • William Bradford • Harvest festival • Declared by Lincoln to be a national holiday J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

15. The 13 Colonies J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

16. The Middle Colonies (1) • Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware • More multicultural • English • Swedes • Dutch • Scots • Irish • French • African slaves • Native American tribes J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

17. The Middle Colonies (2) • Middle ground between the “Puritan North” and the “plantation South” • More tolerant than their neighbours? • Fertile ground • Literally • In terms of mixing of ideas, religions, etc. • Benjamin Franklin: printer and philanthropist J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

18. Benjamin Franklin • Printer • Pennsylvania Gazette • Poor Richard’s Almanac • Philanthropist • Firehouse • Hospital • College of Pennsylvania • Inventor • The lightning experiment • Wood burning stove • Bifocal glasses J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

19. The Southern Colonies • Plantation economy • Tobacco, rice, indigo, cotton • Labour intensive • Indentured servitude to slavery • 1661: Virginia legally established slavery • All early colonies had slaves, but more in the Southern colonies because of economic demand! J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

20. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

21. The Middle Passage • Journey from West Africa to West Indies • Three weeks • “Loose packing” • “Tight packing” • By 1700: tens of thousands of slaves • African diaspora J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

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23. Slave Codes • Increasing number of slaves = increasing anxiety for their white masters • Slave rebellions • Slave Codes • Slaves are property • Slaves cannot own property • Not allowed to assemble without the presence of a white person • No slave can give testimony against a white person • No slave can be taught to read or write • Slave marriages are not recognised J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

24. 1700 - 1763 • Setting the stage for Revolution • Enlightenment ideas in Europe • Newton • John Locke • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Distance from England • “What is the American?” • Tradition of independent rule • Smugglers • Immigrants who never owed allegiance to England in the first place • The Zenger Trial: freedom of the press! J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

25. Run Up to Revolution • From ushistory.org: Many events transpired between the years of 1763 and 1776 that served as short-term causes of the Revolution. But the roots had already been firmly planted. In many ways, the American Revolution had been completed before any of the actual fighting began. (“The Beginnings of Revolutionary Thinking”) J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

26. Meanwhile, Back in Europe… • England and France at war (again) • France loses her possessions in North America • And develops a desire to humiliate England • England incurs huge debts • And tries to recover by taxing her colonies • American colonists gain fighting experience J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

27. George Washington • “I cannot tell a lie.” • Born 1732 in Virginia • Wealthy plantation owner’s son • Apprenticed to a surveyor • Colonel in the French-Indian War J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

28. 1763 - 1776 • Disagreement over Ohio settlement • French lost – ceded the Ohio Valley to the British • Britain did not want American colonists to move in • Royal Proclamation of 1763 • Colonists are not to cross the Appalachians • To the British: “I’m protecting you.” • To the colonists: “You just want to control my movements and restrict my success.” J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

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30. 1763 - 1776 • Writs of Assistance • British customs officials started exercising their right to search American ships • No courts • British troops stationed in America • To the British: “I’m protecting you, shouldn’t you play your part?” • To the colonists: “You’re sending troops to watch me.” • Boycott of British goods • Stamp Act repealed J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

31. 1763 - 1776 • The Boston Patriots • 1766: Second attempt to tax American goods directly • 1770: Boston Massacre • Angry mob at customs house • British soldiers fired without orders • 5 men killed • All taxes repealed except that on tea J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

32. 1773: Boston Tea Party I dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, . . . [and] after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin's wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea... We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water. In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship. . . . – Anonymous, "Account of the Boston Tea Party by a Participant," (1773) J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

33. 1773 - 1776 • Series of punishing Acts • Stop sea trade • British gain control over legislative system in Boston • Direct rule over Quebec • 1774: British take over Boston • 1775: Fighting begins • The American Revolution has started • Fought by local militias! • 1776: Declaration of Independence approved by colonies J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

34. Impact of the Revolution: Slavery • 1781: British general Cornwallis surrenders in Virginia • Impact on slavery: • “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” • 1775: First anti-slavery society formed • Northern states begin to ban slavery • British army freed slaves J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

35. Impact of the Revolution: Legislature • Free to change/add laws • Land laws: No more primogeniture • Separation of church and state • By 1833: even Puritan states no longer used tax dollars to support the church J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

36. Impact of the Revolution: Gender Norms • Men fought in the Revolution • Women became heads of their households • Republican motherhood • To have strong nation, you need enlightened citizens • To have enlightened citizens, you need enlightened mothers • Education + new roles = growing class of outspoken women J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

37. Abigail Adams I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. -Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776 J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

38. 1980s - 1800 • The French Revolution • Deep political divide in America • Emergence of two parties: • Federalists • Democratic-Republicans • Election of 1796: • Adams (Northern states) • Thomas Jefferson (Southern states) • Growing North-South divide J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

39. Culture and Society of Nineteenth-Century America Economics Politics Gender Race Literature J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

40. A New Century • A growing nation (literally) • 1776: 13 colonies on the Eastern coast • By 1821: 11 new states added • “Growing regional distinctiveness” • 1823: Monroe Declaration • A “bold new national identity” (“Social Change and National Development,” ushistory.org) J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

41. A New Century: Economics • Industrialisation • Factory system • Female workers • Concentrated in the northeast • Rise of wage labour • Growth of banking industry • South: crisis in tobacco industry • Eli Whitney’s cotton gin • Cotton industry takes off to feed Northern mills J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

42. The Railroads • Fed the industrial revolution • Rail magnates • Transcontinental railroads • Chinese • Irish J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

43. A New Century: Religion • Religious revivals • Emphasis on humans’ ability to change for the better • Emphasis on free will • More public roles for women and African Americans The noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated as if by a storm... Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy. A peculiarly strange sensation came over me. My heart beat tumultuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered, and I felt as though I must fall to the ground. - (“Religious Transformation,” ushistory.org) J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

44. A New Century: Arts and Culture • The politics of language • Webster’s dictionary • Emergence of American writers • Washington Irving • James Fenimor Cooper • American painters • Thomas Cole • John James Audubon • What does it mean to be an American artist? J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

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47. A New Century: Gender • Egalitarian principles • Women’s greater participation in religious life • Women moving slowly into public space • 1830s: female schoolteachers outnumber male • Still paid less than men • Still few options • New gender norms? J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

48. Changing Ways of Life • Growth of industrial cities and towns • Money as a sign of status • Disease, poverty, crime • Infrastructure and social services cannot cope • Haven needed • Cult of the Home • Ideals: True Manhood and True Womanhood J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

49. Gender • Binary worldview J. Phay / American Lit / 2013

50. True Womanhood Without ignoring accomplishments, or casting a slur upon any of the graces which serve to adorn society, we must look deeper for the acquirements which serve to form our ideal of a perfect woman. The companion of man should be able thoroughly to sympathize with him — her intellect should be as well developed as his. We do not believe in the mental inequality of the sexes; we believe that the man and the woman have each a work to do, for which they are specially qualified, and in which they are called to excel. Though the work is not the same, it is equally noble, and demands an equal exercise of capacity. From Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. LIII, July to December, 1856. J. Phay / American Lit / 2013