America in the 19 th

Century
 American Literature
Relationship to European literature
Romantic background (nationalism, love
of nature, emotion of author, liberalism,
exoticism)
Search for truly American work
 Washington Irving
Legend of Sleepy
Hollow
Rip Van Winkle
Tales of the
Alhambra
 James Fenimore Cooper
Last of the
Mohicans
The Deerslayer
 Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter
The House of Seven
Gables
 Herman Melville
Moby Dick
 Henry W. Longfellow
The Song of Hiawatha
Courtship of Miles Standish
 Edgar Allan Poe
Invented mystery
Dark poetry with
morals
The Raven
Wife died in Baltimore
The Purloined Letter
The Tell Tale Heart
Cask of Amontillado
Pit and the Pendulum
 Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Collection of American poems
 Here is the test of wisdom,
Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,
Wisdom cannot be passd from one having
it to another not having it,
Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of
proof, is its own proof,
Applies to all stages and objects and
qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality and
immortality of things, and the excellence
of things;
Something there is in the float of the sight
of things that provokes it out of the soul.
Walt Whitman
 Transcendentalism
Philosophy of Immanuel
Kant
Knowledge beyond the 5
sense
Intuitive truths
Nature is a source of joy
The soul is a reflection of
out lives
Began a movement
among Unitarians
 Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature
Defined American
Transcendentalism
Self Reliance
Outlined principles
to base decision
 Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Wanted to lived
Emersons teachings
On Civil Disobedience
basic laws transcend
laws of the land
American dichotomy
 Success usually comes to those
who are too busy to be looking
for it.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
 Louisa May Alcott
Little Women
 Emily Dickinson
American poetess
Seclusion in
Massachusetts
1700 poems, only 7
published during
lifetime
Theme: interaction
between self and
world
 Westward Settlement
Before 1820
Driving force was economic
improvement
Acquisition of Louisiana
War 1812
Transportation
 Westward Settlement
After 1820
Slavery
Promotion of common
man
Pioneers
Immigration form
Europe
Manifest Destiny
Homestead Act
 American Civil War
Causes
Conduct of the
war
Results
Northern
domination
Republican party
and Lincoln
If I were two-faced, would I be
wearing this one.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1935)

 "If I had eight hours to chop
down a tree, I'd spend six
sharpening my ax."
Lincoln, Abraham, quoted in Thorpe, Scott, How to Think
Like Einstein, Barnes & Noble Books, Inc., 2000, p.130.
 Inventors
Benjamin Franklin
Bifocals
Odometer
Stove
Electricity defined
Inventors (Not all agreed)
You are welcome to use the school room
to debate all proper questions in, but such
things as railroads and telegraphs are
impossibilities and rank infidelity. There is
nothing in the Word of God about them. If
God had designated that His intelligent
creatures should travel at the frightful
speed of 15 miles and hour, He would have
foretold it through His holy prophets. It is
a device of Satan to lead immortal souls
down to Hell.
President Martin Van Buren, 1830 in Ohio
 Those tremendously useful men, those powerful and
invincible men, Marconi, Edison, Orville Wright,
Burbank, who sit wrapped in purple robes of creative
genius, are simply men who are capable of striking
reiterated blows. They are men who reached success
because they subjected themselves to the fierce fires
of intellectual and physical endeavor. Men never
ascend to eminence by a single leap or by growth
overnight. Longfellow gave us this:
The heights by great men reached and kept
were not attained by sudden flight,
but they, while their companions slept,
were toiling upward in the night.

Spencer W. Kimball
 Inventors
Eli WhitneyCotton Gin
Robert FultonSteam Boat
Cyrus McCormickReaper
Samuel F. B. MorseTelegraph
Charles GoodyearRubber vulcanization
Elias HoweSewing machine
Edwin DrakeOil wells
Alexander Graham BellTelephone
 Inventors
Thomas Edison
I have not failed. Ive just
found 10,000 ways that wont
work.

Thomas Alva Edison

 "Hell, there are not rules here
we're trying to accomplish
something."

Edison, Thomas A., quoted in Thorpe, Scott, How to

Think Like Einstein, Barnes & Noble Books, Inc., 2000,
p. 124.
 Industrialization
Fisk and GouldStock market speculation
RockefellerStandard Oil
Pulitzer & HearstNewspaper
HarrimanNY Central Railroad
CarnegieSteel
Henry FordAutomobile, production line
E.I. DuPontGunpowder, plastic, chemical
SloanGeneral Motors
 The Uniqueness (Creativity) of
America
Founded on a principle rather than as a
ethnic homeland
What is the principle?
"Is life so sweet, or peace so dear, as
to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery? Forbid it,
Almighty God! I know not what
course others may take; but as for
me, give me liberty or give me
death!"
Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775, Virginia
"They that give up liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve
neither liberty or safety."

Benjamin Franklin
"God help us, as free men, to
recognize the source of our
blessings, the threat to our
freedom and our moral and
spiritual standards, and the need
for humble, yet courageous, action
to preserve these priceless, time-
tested blessings, I humbly pray..."
Ezra Taft Benson, "Watchman, Warn the Wicked", Ensign,
July 1973, p. 38
Thank You
"What actually happened was that the American
West developed highly characteristic technologies
for daily life. We all know the texture today: log
cabins, windmills, card games, heavy horse-
drawn wagons, whiskey, large saddles,
and...death by hanging. Historian Lynn White
pointed out a startling feature of all these
technologies and their link to the Middle Ages
[and not to the earlier Roman or later Industrial
Revolution technologies]....The technologies of
the 11th through the 15th centuries were
wonderfully direct, practical and inventive, and so
too were the immigrants to the American West.
Medieval life and western life were open to variety
and change. What the Old West really did was to
mirror medieval life accurately, because it was
populated by free and inventive people who knew
how to adapt to new circumstances."
John Lienhard, The Engines of Our Ingenuity, p.14.