My project examines the phenomenon of the hazy spaces on the periphery of the antebellum imagination that, while existing geographically at the very fringes of daily American life, are nonetheless active in the conceptualization, production, and representation of an idiosyncratic American sense of space: an anxiety of spatial fragmentation, formlessness, and modulation. In particular I am interested in Poe's “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” and Melville's “Benito Cereno,” both of which deal with American transoceanic travel to the proximity of Antarctica and its surrounding seas. These gothicized nautical fictions demonstrate an important dialectic playing out in these extreme spaces: the oscillating experience of external and closed space. What becomes detectable in antebellum literature in which spaces of enclosure interrupt expansiveness are far-reaching, deeply-rooted anxieties of an ever-transforming American space at risk of fragmenting and necessitating reorientation via the sort of imaginary travel texts being examined.

The purpose of this study is to assess American economic thought during the antebellum period. Antebellum political economy has been largely neglected by historians. They have ignored both the valuable contributions made by America’s first political economists to domestic intellectual culture, as well as the importance of American economic thought in the transatlantic discourse. A dynamic, sophisticated, and complex political economy marks the antebellum era, and when studied in its proper context provides insight into how Americans understood the transformative economic changes they experienced. This dissertation draws on an extensive body of primary and secondary literature. Special consideration is given to the more learned articulations of economic thought. However, recognizing the immature state of the science during the period under investigation works of various levels of theoretical erudition are referenced. In their attempts to fashion a distinctly American political economy domestic thinkers entertained a wide range of economic principles. Contrary to conventional wisdom the Americans were not absolutist in their dedication to British orthodoxy. Antebellum political economy manipulated British authorities to suit the immediate concerns of contemporaries, thus spoiling the essence of classical doctrine. This dissertation makes clear that few Americans accepted classical orthodoxy without important qualifications. Classical theory was confronted with its most systematic challenge by protectionists. Despite protectionism having shaped the course of American economic development, its theoretical underpinnings have been summarily discounted by historians and economists. Protectionists, however, afforded the quintessential expression of American antebellum political economy. This dissertation intends to rescue the protectionists from historical abandon and reclaim the position of relevance they enjoyed during their own time. The antebellum period also hosted a fiery set of intellectuals determined to upset the emerging free-market order, exhibiting a particular disdain for institutions of finance and the industrial ethos. Conservatives from the North and South aimed to slow America’s march into the modern economy. These elements did not operate on the fringes of intellectual society, rather they represent something central to the American discourse and are illustrative of the difficulty attendant to classifying antebellum thinkers according to traditional notions of economic ideology.

This study describes the history of Charleston, South Carolina before the Civil War.

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This thesis explores the evidence for handweaving in antebellum Washington County, Tennessee. The author examines probate inventories, wills, store ledgers, and census and tax materials to determine the identities of the weavers, the equipment and raw materials available to them, and the kinds of textiles that women wove. The author discusses the reasons many women continued to weave cloth at home although commercially woven textiles were available in local stores. The author concludes that many of Washington County's antebellum weavers wove as a contribution to the country goods the family bartered at the local store. Others may have been responding to an ethnic or family tradition or seeking an outlet for creative expression. For many, a combination of factors influenced them to weave. By adding to our understanding of women's household activities in East Tennessee, this study adds to the history of the wider Appalachian region.

This study is a report of the results of an investigation into the extent to which native materials were used in the antebellum buildings of Harrison County, Texas; the way in which they were used; and the aesthetic implications of their use. It was hoped that this research might fill a gap in the art and architectural history of Texas, since nothing has been written on this specific subject except a few articles and unpublished papers dealing with certain houses individually or with log construction in general.

This thesis examines why the south seceded in 1860 as opposed to any other time in the 19th century and what changed the mentalité of the people in the period 1857-1860. The underlying issue in southern politics and the issue of secession was clearly slavery and slavery rested on the economics of cotton. Yet slavery and cotton do not explain why the South seceded in 1860 and not at other times in the preceding seventy years. 1807 saw the outlawing of the international slave trade and 1819 saw Congress pass the Slave Trade Act interdicting the ships involved. In 1828 and 1832 the bitter tariff disputes between northern industrial and southern agricultural interests led to the South Carolina doctrine of “Nullification” but no secession. Neither the 1846 proposed Wilmot Proviso restricting slavery in the new territories nor the immediate post Mexican War disputes over the territorial expansion of slavery caused secession and in every case the South was willing to compromise. The methodology of this work is based on the assumption that words and thoughts are intimately linked and that by measuring changes in frequency of word use, changes in thought can be detected and measured. Evidence for the changing use word frequency was provided by an etymological and article content study of selected daily editions of six newspapers in the three cities. The thesis put forward to explain the change in political attitude is that for the southern cities of Richmond, Charleston and New Orleans, political power and political issues were the most important factors. The rise of the sectional northern Republican Party and fear of its abolitionist principles weighed more heavily than any other factors in altering the psychology of the South. This raised the political dispute over slavery to an issue of secession and potential military conflict.

First published in 1849, Charles Averill’s The Cholera-Fiend follows three villains as they attempt to artificially propagate cholera for their own villainous purposes in New York City. Gumbo, a Black servant to one of the villains, is meant to be the humorous relief in the text, but Gumbo experiences a calculated dehumanization from human to disabled, which causes him to be more at-risk for a health crisis—such as a tapeworm or cholera—than his white counterparts. Through analyzing the genre of cheap fiction, the views of medical professionals towards Black bodies, and other ways Black bodies were used as entertainment, I will argue that Gumbo’s character is representative of the disadvantages directed towards Blacks in times of health crisis—a social crisis within the wider health crisis.

No description available.

No description available.