1815-1850: Life Styles, Social Trends, and Fashion: Publications

Catharine Esther Beecher, A Treatise on Domestic Economy (New York: Harper, 1841)—a source book of domestic advice that became a housekeeping bible for many American women and promoted the idea that domesticity was a vocation as important as those of men;

Black Hawk, Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk (Boston: Russell, Odiorne & Metcalf, 1834)—the story of the Sauk tribe’s encounters and conflicts with white settlers, recorded while Black Hawk was imprisoned for leading the Sauk and Fox Indians in the uprising of 1832; the book went through four editions in its first year of publication;

Lydia Maria Child, An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833)—a plea against both slavery and racial prejudice, which Child considered the result of ignorance and “opposed to the spirit of our religion and contrary to the instinctive good feelings of our nature”;

Charles Dickens, American Notes (New York: Harper, 1842)—the popular English writer’s rather critical description of American society as he saw it during his 1842 celebrity tour of the United States;

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845)—the most influential slave narrative published in America;

Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845)—the first fullscale examination of the condition of women in the United States from a feminist perspective; Fuller emphasized the need for woman “as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded” over the need to agitate in the political arena;

Sarah Grimké, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (Boston: I. Knapp, 1838)—in this series of articles, Grimké answered the arguments of clergymen who barred women from speaking publicly on behalf of the abolition movement;

Eliza Leslie, The Lady’s Receipt Book (Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1847)—the best-selling cookbook in the antebellum period;

Samuel F. B. Morse, Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States Through Foreign Immigration, and the Present State of the Naturalization Laws (New York: E. B. Clayton, 1835)—an influential argument against the naturalization of and extension of voting rights to Catholic immigrants;

The Pro-Slavery Argument: as Maintained by the Most Distinguished Writers of the Southern States, Containing Several Essays, on the Subject, of Chancellor Harper, Governor Hammond, Dr. Simms, and Professor Dew (Charleston, S.C.: Walker, Richards, 1852)—a collection of proslavery articles by prominent Southern writers and politicians;

Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, 2 volumes (London: Whittaker, Treacher, 1832)—another foreign observer’s critical view of American society;

Nat Turner and Thomas Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner (Baltimore: Thomas R. Gray, 1831)—Turner’s life story and explanation of the slave rebellion he led, as dictated to a white lawyer, Thomas Gray, while Turner awaited trial;

David Walker, Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles, Together with a Preamble to the Colored Citizens of the World, But in Particular and Very Expressly to Those of the United States (Boston: David Walker, 1829)—this warning to the nation to repent the evils of slavery and racism in order to avoid bloody conflict shocked many white readers and led to laws restricting black literacy.