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British Travellers and the Anglo-American Relationship in the 1850s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Martin Crawford
Martin Crawford
Affiliation:
American History in the Department of American Studies, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire. He wishes to thank the Earl of Clarendon and the proprietors of The Times respectively for kindly permitting him to quote from the Clarendon and Delane manuscripts.
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Extract

When William Ferguson, an English botanist and entomologist, called at the Detroit home of General Lewis Cass in June 1855, it was natural that during “ a very lengthened and interesting conversation,” the veteran American politician should mention “ the absurd books ” written by British travellers about the United States. “ They come over here,” said Cass, “ run over the country for three months, and think they understand it.” Such sentiments, of course, were commonplace by this time and Ferguson could not have been surprised by the frankness with which they were elucidated. Cass had reached political maturity during a period in which the British traveller became the focus for intense and hostile speculation in the United States. There was no more appropriate target for Jacksonian wrath, for example, than Mrs. Frances Trollope. Her Domestic Manners of the Americans, published in 1832 and widely extracted in American newspapers, helped give broad popular legitimacy to the bitter critical dialogues which pervaded the Anglo-American intellectual community after 1815. During the Jacksonian period, therefore, the British traveller could claim an important role in the development of Atlantic perceptions and attitudes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , August 1978 , pp. 203 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

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57 The literature on Anglo-American relations during the Civil War is immense. The two most recent contributions are Jenkins, Brian, Britain and the War for the Union, Vol. 1 (Montreal and London, 1974)Google Scholar, and Crook, D. P., The North, the South, and the Powers 1861–1865 (New York and London, 1974)Google Scholar. For the Alabama Claims settlement, see the valuable monograph by Cook, Adrian, The Alabama Claims: American Politics and Anglo-American Relations, 1865–1872 (Ithaca, 1975)Google Scholar.