After the wartime aggressions were over during the 2nd quarter of the 19th century, Americans could now grasp British literature and criticism. Soon the books would cross the Atlantic and be republished, many works of literature were down like this including books, magazines, and it reached many coastal cities and some even inland cities. These mass transportations of literary works were especially aided by railroads. Emily Dickinson in Charleston was able to be in touch with the latest London literary news.

Women were not given formal educations or did they read certain genres of novels including old English books from the past century or sexually frank writings of the Greek or Latin, but a few women were able to obtain a formal education. Such examples would be Caroline Kirkland and Margaret Fuller, but mostly this was only for the very wealthy women. Many women were able to read books even against their fathers or husbands wishes. An example of this would be Emily Dickinson.

Many Americans believed that America needed its own national poem and many poets like Joel Barlow and Richard Emmons tried to create this.

Sir Walter Scott created a novel almost every year and tried to remain anonymous but was not able to and eventually it was almost considered a national event when Scott created a new novel. His novels were appealing because of his novels historical settings and the creating of imagined scenes in which real historical people intermingled with fictional characters. Scott made the novel a respectable and elevated genre. James Fenimore Cooper created novels too trying to imitate the great novelists before. Hawthorne was was steeped in Scott and Melville’s reading of Scott emerged as late as his 1876 epic poem Clarel. Scott had invented an infinitely adaptable genre of historical fiction.

Another adaptable genre was the personal travel book. Washington Irving started this by writing about different places in the world primarily Europe, and it lead the reader to these places. Others authors that imitated him would be Henry T. Tuckerman, and Nathaniel Parker Willis, and Herman Melville. Henry David Thoreau read Melville’s book and decided to make a travel book himself, and Thoreau wrote the classic American travel book.

Notable writers who appeared in Schusseles reverential art were Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Cullen Bryant, and James Fenimore Cooper. The painting was fake in the fact that none of these writers were really assembled in the same place at one time, and it could not have been called Irving’s friends because Irving hardly knew most of these men.

Irving was very prominent and it rivaled that of Cooper, who mainly gained his prominence in Europe rather then America. Irving stayed abroad as did Cooper, Irving in Spain and England, in which he became a minister for Spain and a secretary of legation for England. He also brought attention to many other writers like Sir Walter Scott. Irving’s popularity was increasing while Cooper when he returned to the United States was appalled at its people and wrote many oppositional literary works. However, eventually Irving was charged with plagiarizing a biography, but Irving was still seen as an important writer of this time.

The schussele painting, “Washington Irving and his literary friends at sunnyside” showed many aspects about the fragile status of literary reputations. Many writers were excluded from the anthology especially women, such as Catharine Maria Sedgewick, Caroline Kirkland, Lydia Maria Child, Fanny Fern, Margaret Fuller, and most famous of all Harriet Beecher Stowe. It also doesn’t include some of the most prominant writers today such as John Greenleaf Whittier, or Edgar Allan Poe. It also emits two of the most famous writers of the time Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell.

Many of the writers in Schussele’s painting actually did know each other. For example, Georgian Longstreet admired one of the minister Lyman Beecher’s daughters. These relations went from father in law, to loans, to cousins, to living in the same residency, and even idolizing each other. Many were just good friends and paid each other overnight visits and borrowed ideas from one another.

Many male writers came casually together for dining and drinking especially at clubs. A famous club would be the Bread and Cheese Club, which was organized by Cooper in 1824. Another club was the Saturday Club, and many notable authors such as Fitzgerald attended  these clubs. Emerson went to the Saturday club too. Another organization of mostly Boston based Unitarians began to meet to study German philosophy and this was called the Transcendental Club.

Different regions had different forms of writings. Most writers were from the original thirteen states while other practical writers were from the Northwest and the humor writers were from the Southwest. Included in the Northwest were the states of the Northwest ordinance or mainly, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin while the South west consisted of states such as Georgia Louisiana Arkansas and Tennessee.

Transportation was shrinking America eventhough there was a fast expansion westward. At first there were no steamboats, railroads, canals or various other forms of transportations that were much safer then the ones many authors had to use. Transportation now allowed Americans to travel further distances safer then usual, eventhough there were casual train wrecks, steamboat explosions, and Atlantic shipwrecks.

San Francisco largely developed because of the Gold Rush of 1849. In which many people especially Americans and Europeans poured into California in wagons, on horseback or simply by foot.

Cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston were very small compared to its current size in population and in area. Authors like Horace Greenly and Margaret Fuller would live near cities especially New York, and often would hang out in places such as the Crystal Palace. The Crystal palace was an exposition of arts, crafts, and sciences created in imitation of the great Crystal palace at the London’s World’s Fair of 1851.

Most of the writers during this period tried to obtain readers in the East. However, with the purchase of the Louisiana Purchase and the other changes in the western American borders, there was a new genre of literature being developed. This genre of literature was basically discussing the aspects of life to the west. Cooper stated all the things past Mississippi, and Irving went past the Mississippi and told of all the things to the far west. Many authors even moved to the western regions such as San Francisco or parts of Nevada.

At first and for many years authors would have to go to a local printer and pay a certain fee for the printer to print copies and to bind the books for the writers. Then the writers would have to distribute the books themselves, but eventually printing or publishing companies developed. These companies were mainly located in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Books were able to travel at extraordinary speeds for their time period over great distances. Thus the book selling business because much easier.

Copyright became a major problem. Copyright protected American authors selling in America, which was fine but it did not protect American authors in foreign countries nor did it protect foreigners from piracy of their literary works. Therefore great British novelists such as Scott did not obtain any money from American publishing, and these books were able to go to the American people very cheaply, and this hurt the American authors because Americans would rather have cheap good foreign books rather then expensive local books.

Irving made a success in Britain by publishing books in Britain and selling them in Britain, this made him substantial money and many other American authors thought of following this too, but a British Judge eventually ruled this illegal and this dried up American sales of novels in Britain.

The United States was a not a place that fiction writing could have been a substantial career though a few like Stow and Alcott did make success internationally most authors did not succeed in the same way. Magazines and Newspapers became great places for authors to publish their works too. Many prominent authors would publish their works here including Poe, Longstreet, Harris, Thorpe, Johnson, Hooper, Lowell, and many others.

The eccentricity of Americans especially in rural areas and smaller towns was notorious among visitors from abroad and was recorded in some of its aspects by diverse writers.

American society was unique and despite its powerful individualists it seemed to some of the writers that Americans even while deluding themselves that they were the most self reliant populace in the world were systematically selling out their individualities. Some authors satirized America in the fact that men try to force newcomers to give up their individuality for their customs. Some of these Authors were Thoreau and Emmerson.

No writers found it a good thing that America was giving up its individualities as men and women gave up their farms for factories. Thoreau stated that Americans were wasting their money and instead of spending money on needed things they spent it on materialistic things, which was similar to the ideas of Benjamin Franklin.

Men, women, and children all were working in factories and social class differences were becoming very obvious. Also, this was greatly written about in articles. Fanny Fern wrote about how women can create a decent living working in factories and Melville wrote about the exploitation of females in the Mill working factories. In strangely different ways the writers to speak out most profoundly about the emerging American economic system were Child, Stowe, Fern, Thoreau, Douglass, Melville, Whitman, and Davis.

Many writers would have at odds with the dominant religion at the time, which happened to be Protestant Christianity, and this religion tried to control the books being read. Many writers such as Sedgwick, a Unitarian,  Whitman, a Quaker, and others tried to stop religions power of their novels by stating the horrors of the Church controlling the literature being read.

Eventhough many writers tried to separate the power religion had on literature many felt that religion was irreplaceable. Some of these writers that felt this were Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who all felt that there was something mystical and great that came with the soul when embracing their religion.

Transcendentalism in the 1830s and 40s in pieces of literature like magazines and newspapers was considered a menace to organized religion. Many writers like Hawthorne said it was a religion that its followers did not fully understand and neither did the rest of the world. However, a few writers did acknowledge it as a decent religion because of some of the sense made from it.

Religion was powerful enough to silence Melville from writing after his publication of Moby Dick, when religion fought it strongly and yelled at Harpers for publishing it too. They said that the writers were wasting literature when it could have been used to benefit their religion.

Americans were fearing the great migrations of people of Catholic religion into America. Many people tried to scare others into thinking that the Catholics will ruin the nation and many radical events did happen. Some writers fought the idea of the Catholic religions power increasing and many others embraced it and told all Catholics had the right to come.

Some jobs were deemed unfit for the American born people, many American-born Americans felt that the immigrants should only be the one to have low class jobs. This to some extent was true, in the fact that many non-American born citizens did not have high class jobs, and they would be doing laborious work like building the Panama Canal. America imported 15000 Chinese workers to do the most hazardous jobs. When the Chinese people that survived finished, it meant that Chinese culture would blend in with the largely European culture, and other Asians would eventually move into the Americas too. There was a period of anti-immigrant propaganda and violence against immigration.

America thought of itself as homogenous which was obviously false because immigrants from different countries all over Europe had come, and the idea of moving all those immigrants back to where they came from was practicably impossible during the prewar years. After the Civil war many more immigrants came, especially from east and south Europe. Some of these new people to come were Jews who were forced to leave Russia from anti-Jewish programs. In America Emma Lazarus created a Society for the improvement and Colonization of Eastern European Jews.

Many writers felt that America eventhough the most idealistic country in the world had many horrors. Such horrors would be the massive genocide of the Indians, slavery of African Americans, and  the staged “Executives War”. Many writers did not mention in their writings about the mass removal of Indians, but an exception to this was Emerson. A few other writers who did talk about Indian removal was greatly for it saying God had chosen them to be superior and that Indians should have to leave. Bellows stated that Americans were becoming blood thirsty people around what they assumed to be their enemies.

Melville stated slavery was mans foulest crime, and Fredrick Douglas gained many readers about enslavement too. Many authors on the eve of the Civil war recorded the fugitive slaves feelings toward their owners. The fugitive slave law was passed by Melville’s father in law and outraged Thoreau. It required all runaway slaves to be returned to their owners.

By the time the Civil War ended many of the famous writers were dead including Cooper, Irving, Poe, Fuller, Thoreau, and Hawthorne. Whittier and Child had devoted decades of their lives to the struggle against slavery and arousing furious resistance. Douglass’s oratory revealed to many white Northerners a sense of the evils of slavery. Rebecca Harding Davis saw that Emerson had no notion that suffering was involved. Hawthorne, who received her with enthusiasm had faced the start of the war as a southern sympathizer in a village.

Eventhough Melville did not evoke great fiction he did grab the attention of the readers and hooked the eager for information readers to look at newspapers hoping for an end to the War.

Before she died, Child realized how little reconstruction did for the education and financial uplifting of formal slaves. Whitman and Melville also noticed the end of politics on this great issue. Clarel by Melville was a great counter centennial poem.

The American Revolution helped create the French Revolution which meant many more accomplishments. With the Napoleonic era many social and political changes were occurring in Europe. Napoleons soldiers captured the Rosetta Stone and deciphered its meaning. Archaeological excavations in Italy and elsewhere transforming Rome and Greece. A German aristocrat made many discoveries in Botany, biology, geology, physical geography, meteorology, climatologic, and even astronomy. He published his discoveries in many volumes. Overall, knowledge of the physical universe was increasing explosively.

Many European and North American countries and a few others of great wealth and power tried to seize as many colonies as possible. America seized Hawaii and Alaska, while Britain and France grabbed several others. When America colonized California, people thought it was gods blessing because months later they found gold.

Irving by the mid century was very old and thought of being very overrated because most writers were only decent while young. Literary greatness in America was up for grabs, and the ambitiousness of America was called the True American Spirit by Melville.