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This series includes accounts of historical events and movements by eye-witnesses and contemporaries, as well as landmark studies that assembled significant source materials or developed new historiographical methods. The works range from the writings of early U.S. presidents to journals of poor European settlers, from travellers' descriptions of bustling cities and vast landscapes to critiques of racial inequality and descriptions of Native American culture under threat of annihilation. The commercial, political and social aspirations and rivalries of the 'new world' are reflected in these fascinating eighteenth- and nineteenth-century publications.

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163 results in Cambridge Library Collection - North American History

Page 7 of 9

Travels to the Source of the Missouri River
  • And Across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean 1804, 1805, and 1806
  • Volume 1
  • Meriwether Lewis, William Clark
  • Edited by Thomas Rees
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    09 December 2010
    First published in:
    1815
  • The Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804–1806 across America from Pittsburg to the Pacific and back was the third recorded transcontinental journey. President Jefferson had negotiated the Louisiana Purchase of over two million square kilometres from the French in 1803, and the aim of the expedition was to investigate the territory involved. He commissioned a Corps of Discovery as a scientific and military expedition to survey the acquisition, appointing his aide Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) to lead it. It was hoped to discover that the Missouri and other rivers could be used for transcontinental communication and transport, and to assess the natural resources of the area. Some of the party returned east with specimens, reports and a map, while the remainder reached the Pacific in December 1805. Volume 1 covers the departure and contacts with various Indian tribes, as far as Great Falls, Montana, in June 1805.

Retrospect of Western Travel
  • Volume 3
  • Harriet Martineau
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    02 September 2010
    First published in:
    1838
  • Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) was a British writer and scholar who can be described as one of the first British sociologists. She was one of the first social theorists to examine all aspects of a society, including social class, religion, national character and the status of women in a society. After the death of her fiancé Martineau published articles on economics and taxation before embarking on a two year tour of the United States in 1834. She immersed herself in American society, visiting both Houses of Congress along with prisons, hospitals and literary and scientific institutions. These volumes contain a description of her travels through America. Written in the form of a travel book, Martineau's sharp powers of observation provide not only a vivid description of America but also insights into the construction of nineteenth century American society. Volume 3 contains her travels in New England.

Notes on the United States of North America during a Phrenological Visit in 1838–39–40
  • Volume 3
  • George Combe
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    21 October 2010
    First published in:
    1841
  • George Combe (1788–1858) rose from humble origins to tour widely in Europe and the United States, lecturing on phrenology, the popular Victorian belief that character traits were determined by the configuration of the skull. He founded Britain's first Phrenological Society in 1820 in Edinburgh, and was considered the foremost phrenologist of the nineteenth century. These volumes, first published in 1841, contain Combe's account of a phrenological lecture tour he undertook in the United States between 1838 and 1840. In the form of a journal, Combe describes the social and political institutions of the United States, and provides vivid descriptions of American society and customs. He also provides accounts of phrenological practice and the lectures he presented. These volumes provide a wealth of information on nineteenth-century society in America, and invaluable details concerning the practice of phrenology. Volume 3 concludes his account, and discusses 'American civilization'.

Notes on the United States of North America during a Phrenological Visit in 1838–39–40
  • Volume 1
  • George Combe
  • Published online:
    07 September 2011
    Print publication:
    21 October 2010
    First published in:
    1841
  • George Combe (1788–1858) rose from humble origins to tour widely in Europe and the United States, lecturing on phrenology, the popular Victorian belief that character traits were determined by the configuration of the skull. He founded Britain's first Phrenological Society in 1820 in Edinburgh, and was considered the foremost phrenologist of the nineteenth century. These volumes, first published in 1841, contain Combe's account of a phrenological lecture tour he undertook in the United States between 1838 and 1840. In the form of a journal, Combe describes the social and political institutions of the United States, and provides vivid descriptions of American society and customs. He also provides accounts of phrenological practice and the lectures he presented. These volumes provide a wealth of information on nineteenth-century society in America, and invaluable details concerning the practice of phrenology. Volume 1 covers his stay in New York and New England.

A Diary in America
  • With Remarks on its Institutions
  • Volume 2
  • Frederick Marryat
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1839
  • Captain Frederick Marryat (1792–1848) was a distinguished naval officer, today best remembered as a novelist (particularly of stories for children), often drawing on his own experiences. He also edited a radical journal, and wrote non-fiction, including an attack on press-gangs, which damaged his career. He spent 1837 and 1838 travelling in North America, publishing his impressions in this unstructured six-volume 'diary' in 1839. He states that the number of contradictory and often trivial accounts of American life being published made him want to see the New World for himself. He found it impossible to make generalisations, given the size of the country and the different origins of new arrivals, and did not believe America would become a nation for many years. Volume 2 covers such topics as language, the prison system and the army.

The Great Republic
  • Lepel Henry Griffin
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1884
  • Sir Lepel Henry Griffin (1838–1908) was a British administrator and diplomat in the Indian Civil Service. Beginning in Lahore in 1860, his career in India spanned nearly thirty years until he resigned in 1889 and began a new life in commerce and finance. In 1884 Griffin published The Great Republic, a stinging critique of the United States. Consisting partly of articles which had already appeared in the Fortnightly Review, Griffin's book was intended to warn Englishmen, particularly Liberals, of 'the political methods of America which strike me as thoroughly bad and corrupt'. His chief accusation was that the American political system had put power into the hands of the uneducated masses. He also condemned Americans' love of materialism, their 'philistinism', and the anti-English sentiment which he had encountered during his three-week stay there. Controversial in its day, his book is a fascinating document in the history of Anglo-American relations.

A Diary in America
  • With Remarks on its Institutions
  • Volume 4
  • Frederick Marryat
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    02 June 2011
    First published in:
    1839
  • Captain Frederick Marryat (1792–1848) was a distinguished naval officer, today best remembered as a novelist (particularly of stories for children), often drawing on his own experiences. He also edited a radical journal, and wrote non-fiction, including an attack on press-gangs, which damaged his career. He spent 1837 and 1838 travelling in North America, publishing his impressions in this unstructured six-volume 'diary' in 1839. He states that the number of contradictory and often trivial accounts of American life being published made him want to see the New World for himself. He found it impossible to make generalisations, given the size of the country and the different origins of new arrivals, and did not believe America would become a nation for many years. Volume 4 discusses immigration, and American authors and journalists.

Notes on the United States of North America during a Phrenological Visit in 1838–39–40
  • Volume 2
  • George Combe
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    21 October 2010
    First published in:
    1841
  • George Combe (1788–1858) rose from humble origins to tour widely in Europe and the United States, lecturing on phrenology, the popular Victorian belief that character traits were determined by the configuration of the skull. He founded Britain's first Phrenological Society in 1820 in Edinburgh, and was considered the foremost phrenologist of the nineteenth century. These volumes, first published in 1841, contain Combe's account of a phrenological lecture tour he undertook in the United States between 1838 and 1840. In the form of a journal, Combe describes the social and political institutions of the United States, and provides vivid descriptions of American society and customs. He also provides accounts of phrenological practice and the lectures he presented. These volumes provide a wealth of information on nineteenth-century society in America, and invaluable details concerning the practice of phrenology. Volume 2 covers his stay in Philadelphia and Maine.

American Scenery
  • Or, Land, Lake, and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature
  • Volume 1
  • Nathaniel Parker Willis
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1840
  • Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–67) came from a publishing family and began his writing career with contributions to magazines. He also wrote poetry and plays but is best remembered as a travel writer. In this two-volume work of 1840, his contribution (described on the title page as 'the literary department') was to provide a narrative for prints from the engravings of William Henry Bartlett (1809–54), the famous British landscape artist, who followed already established tourist routes in the United States to make his drawings. Each of Bartlett's 119 engravings is accompanied by a short essay by Willis, who states in the preface that it is his intention to bring to the reader at home 'at small cost' the sensations of travel which 'those whose lot is domestic and retired' would never be in a position to experience for themselves. This extremely popular work remained in print for thirty years.

Notions of the Americans
  • Picked Up by a Travelling Bachelor
  • Volume 1
  • James Fenimore Cooper
  • Published online:
    05 August 2011
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1828
  • The 'Travelling Bachelor' who is named as author on the original title page of this two-volume work is in fact James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851), best remembered today as the writer of The Last of the Mohicans (1826), generally regarded as his masterpiece, which has remained in print and been adapted for cinema and television many times. In fact, Cooper was a prolific author of political journalism and travel writing as well as novels. His Notions of the Americans is an epistolary work in which Cooper adopts the persona of a well-travelled European clubman who has decided to explore the United States in the same spirit as that in which the offspring of the British nobility undertook the Grand Tour. Within a light-hearted narrative, Cooper's serious purpose was to reveal the nature of this brand-new nation to his own countrymen as well as to Europeans.

Greater Britain
  • Volume 1
  • Charles Wentworth Dilke
  • Published online:
    05 July 2011
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1868
  • As a young man, Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843–1911), the Cambridge-educated Radical politician who went on to campaign for votes for women and labourers, legalisation of trade unions, and universal schooling, spent two years touring the English-speaking world. This two-volume illustrated account of his journey was published in 1868, the year in which he first entered Parliament. Volume 1 describes his travels across the United States, where he arrived aboard The Saratoga, landing at Chesapeake Bay in Virginia on 20 June 1866. Dilke explored the reconstructing American South, the bustling eastern seaboard, the vast plains of the Midwest, the magnificent Rocky Mountain range, and the diverse landscape and peoples of California before venturing south into Mexico and departing for Polynesia and the Pacific islands. He thoughtfully discusses the legacy of British colonial culture in America, and its continuing diffusion via America to other parts of the world.

Society in America
  • Volume 1
  • Harriet Martineau
  • Published online:
    05 July 2011
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1837
  • The British scholar Harriet Martineau spent two years travelling throughout the United States before writing her three-volume commentary, Society in America, in 1837. Her lengthy journey began in New York in the autumn of 1834, less than sixty years after the birth of the United States, and she immersed herself in the politics, economics, civilisation and religions of the country before returning to England in the summer of 1836. Her travels took her to the nation's capital, where she enjoyed the hospitality of the president, witnessed Supreme Court proceedings and visited both houses of Congress. She also went to prisons, hospitals and mental institutions, literary and scientific foundations, factories, plantations and farms around the land; lived in farmhouses and log cabins; and travelled by horse, stagecoach and steamboat. This first volume focuses on the United States government and the morals of American politics.

Domestic Manners of the Americans
  • Volume 1
  • Frances Milton Trollope
  • Published online:
    05 July 2011
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1832
  • Frances Trollope candidly describes her travel experiences in the United States during 1827–1831 in her two-volume book Domestic Manners of the Americans. First published in 1832, it records her views on many aspects of American daily life, especially targeting the supposed lack of manners among Americans. On reaching America, Mrs. Trollope encountered a country that was completely different from what she had expected. She expresses her disgust at the copious handshaking, spitting-habits, tobacco chewing, expressions of self-righteousness, and hypocrisy of the Americans and vents her outrage at the existence of the slave trade in a country that boasted of equality. Her criticisms of American culture are interspersed with descriptions of elections, cathedrals, markets, public balls, literature, and religion. Volume 1 covers her travels through New Orleans, Memphis, Baltimore and Washington, and offers an engaging account of a nineteenth-century Englishwoman's impressions of America.

The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans in the Years 1814–1815
  • George Robert Gleig
  • Published online:
    28 April 2011
    Print publication:
    02 December 2010
    First published in:
    1847
  • Tactless and ambitious, George Robert Gleig was perhaps a strange choice for an army chaplain; however, his enthusiasm for army life was clear and as an annalist of military manoeuvres he proved both insightful and popular. First published in 1821, just six years after he had witnessed the British campaigns in Washington and New Orleans, Gleig's volume presented readers with a vivid chronicle of conflicts that had unfolded thousands of miles from their own cosy parlours and drawing rooms. Just as his own itinerary had moved him rapidly from one iconic landmark to the next, so too does the pace of his written narrative progress. From Bermuda to the Blue Mountains and on to New Orleans, this account provides a glimpse of the impressions, sentiments and attitudes fostered among the young men who fought some of the most influential battles in British and American history.

A Visit to the United States in 1841
  • Joseph Sturge
  • Published online:
    06 December 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1842
  • Joseph Sturge (1793–1859) was an English Quaker who was influential in campaigning for the abolition of slavery in the British empire and founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839. Having visited the West Indies in 1834, he travelled to the United States in 1841 to examine the slavery question there firsthand, and to lend his support to the American abolition movement by sharing his experiences of how success was achieved elsewhere. His account of his visit, and of the feelings and opinions of the American campaigners he met, is the subject of this 1842 book, which he hoped would encourage activists around the world and promote understanding among them.

American Notes for General Circulation
  • Volume 2
  • Charles Dickens
  • Published online:
    05 October 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1842
  • Charles Dickens (1812–1870) is best remembered today for the novels which offer a fantastic, even grotesque panorama of Victorian life, but he was a journalist before he became a novelist. His travel writings have all the energy and urgency of journalism, and these two volumes, drawn from his experiences on a six-month tour of America between January and June 1842, are no exception. Dickens was already hugely popular with the American reading public, and he was lionised wherever he went, but the American Notes, and the American scenes in Martin Chuzzlewit, caused great controversy and were felt by many to insult the people and institutions of the United States. Dickens's dedication of American Notes, to 'those friends of mine in America ... who, loving their country, can bear the truth when it is told good humouredly, and in a kind spirit' suggests that he was not surprised by this reaction.

The Faithful Mohawks
  • John Wolfe Lydekker
  • Published online:
    07 September 2010
    Print publication:
    27 May 2010
    First published in:
    1938
  • The Mohawks were the largest group in the Iroquois confederacy of Native American tribes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Living in what is now upstate New York and along the Canadian border, they held political control over north-eastern America before the colonial period, and were one of the first native American groups to have contact with European explorers. First published in 1938, this work contains a history of the Mohawks and the Iroquois confederacy from the period 1704 to 1807 taken from the archives of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1704 and at first active mainly in North America. J. W. Lydekker provides a detailed history of the Mohawks' co-operation and alliance with the British colonists during the wars of the mid-eighteenth century and during the Revolutionary War, seen from the perspective of the missionaries from the Society.

The Englishwoman in America
  • Isabella L. Bird
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    20 July 2009
    First published in:
    1856
  • In 1856, Isabella Bird published The Englishwoman in America, the first of what would be many books of her travels around the world. Adopting a tone of aloof bemusement, she describes in detail the hardships and annoyances of her travels by sea from England to Halifax, and on the road to Boston, Cincinnati, and Chicago. The book's 20 chapters are full of keenly observed and entertainingly told stories of pickpockets and luggage thieves, greasy hotels, and Americans who are very polite, but have the unfortunate habit of spitting on the floor. Bird admits to sharing the regrettably prejudiced view the English have of America, but nevertheless finds much to like and admire in this new country bustling with ethnically diverse immigrants full of energy and bravado. The Englishwoman in America is a wonderful travelogue that offers a lively and personal glimpse into mid-nineteenth-century America.

Travels in the United States, etc. During 1849 and 1850
  • Volume 3
  • Emmeline Stuart-Wortley
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    24 September 2009
    First published in:
    1851
  • Published in 1851, Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley's account of her travels through the Americas during the mid nineteenth century represents an early example of the travel writing genre. The United States was becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination for Europeans at this time, and Lady Emmeline's writings present a quintessentially British impression of America and its people. This third and final volume records her journeys through Panama to Lima, describing in detail the architecture, climate, people and scenery of Peru, and her onward journey to Kingston, Jamaica. Written in an engaging and conversational tone, the volumes are both informative and entertaining, fulfilling the author's aim to 'amuse' with 'the gossip of travel.'

With Thackeray in America
  • Eyre Crowe
  • Published online:
    29 August 2010
    Print publication:
    28 January 2010
    First published in:
    1893
  • The British painter Eyre Crowe chronicled, through words and pictures, his six-month American tour with William Makepeace Thackeray. Crowe accompanied Thackeray in the unfamiliar role of his secretary during the latter's lecture tour round the United States in 1852–3, and his illustrated account was published in 1893 – thirty years after the writer's death – under the title, With Thackeray In America. Crowe relates that the renowned humourist asked him to accompany him for the simple reason that 'Six months tumbling about the world will do you no harm.' A lasting and memorable partnership was formed, and the details of the adventure were preserved in Crowe's amusing running commentary as well as in his art.

Page 7 of 9