The Star Spangled Banner

Francis Scott Key (1814)

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

1. When was this song written? What was going on at that time?
2. Would this song make someone proud to be an American? Why or why not?
3. Where do we most often hear this song today? Why would we hear it at such events?
4. What words or phrases seem nationalistic (patriotic)? How do they convey nationalism?

Excerpts from

Walden

By: Henry David Thoreau (1854)

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or

three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a
dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.Simplify, simplify.
Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one, instead of a
hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not
having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at
meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty
cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called
etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that
we need not come to open war. We meet at the post-office, and at the
sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each
other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose
some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice for
all important and hearty communications. Consider the girls in a factory
never alone, hardly in their dreams. It would be better if there were but
one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live.
1. Does Thoreau advocate (support) a simple or complex world? How do you know?
2. What does Thoreau think of our present communications and interactions?
3. Based on the excerpts, describe the type of society Thoreau might want to live in.

Excerpt from

Women in the 19thCentury

By Margaret Fuller (1845)

Is it not enough, cries the irritated trade, that you have done all you could to break up the
national union, and thus destroy the prosperity of our country, but now you must be trying to
break up family union, to take my wife away from the cradle and the kitchen-hearth to vote at
polls and preach from the pulpit? Of course, if she does such things, she cannot attend to those
of her own sphere. She is happy enough as she is, She has more leisure than I have every
means of improvement, every indulgence.
Have you asked her whether she was satisfied with these indulgences?
No, but I know she is.I will never consent to have our peace disturbed by any such
discussion.
Consentyou? It is not consent from you that is in questionit is assent from your wife.
Am I not the head of my house?
You are not the head of your wife. God has given her a mind of her own.

1. What does society say is the role of women during this time?
2. The first part is an argument used to show that women are actually happy in this society. Does the
author agree with these ideas? How do you know?
3. Why do you think some people were hesitant to give women more opportunities for education and
political involvement? Do we still see these issues today?

Excerpt from

Narrative of the Life of Frederick

Douglass
Fredrick Douglass (1845)

I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt,
slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this
land. I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show,
together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me. We have menstealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church
members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cow skin during the week fills the pulpit on
Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my
earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me
the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution,
stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the
Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me.We see the
thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build
churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor
heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! Here we have religion and robbery the
allies of each other--devils dressed in angels' robes, and hell presenting the semblance of
paradise.

1.

Does Douglass think that the American form of Christianity is bad or does he think that the people who are
practicing the religion are bad? How do you know?

2.

Douglass uses a lot of negative images to describe his society? Why might he do that? Does he like what is
going on?

3. If you wrote a narrative (personal story) about your life today would society be viewed as good or bad?
Give examples of what you would write about.

Descriptions of novels that make up

The Leatherstocking Tales

Author: James Fenimore Cooper (1821-1845)

The five novels in The Leatherstocking Tales, Cooper's great saga of the American wilderness,
form a pageant of the American frontier. Cooper's hero, Natty Bumppo, is forced ever farther
into the heart of the continent by the advance of civilization that he inadvertently serves as
advance scout, missionary, and critic. The Leatherstocking Tales narrates the conflict of nations
(Indian, English, French, and American) amid the dense woods, desolate prairies, and
transcendent landscapes of the New World.
Leatherstocking first appears in The Pioneers (1823), as an aged hunter living on the fringe of
settlement near Templeton (Cooperstown), New York, at the end of the eighteenth century.
There he becomes caught in the struggles of party, family, and class to control the changing
American land and to determine what sort of civilization will replace the rapidly vanishing
wilderness. When Natty Bumppo started an American tradition by setting off into the sunset at
the novel's close, one early reader said, "I longed to go with him."
The Last of the Mohicans (1826) is a pure unabashed narrative of adventure. It looks back to
the earlier time of the French and Indian Wars, when Natty and his two companions,
Chingachgook and Uncas, survivors of a once-proud Indian nation, attempt a daring rescue and
seek to forestall the plan of the French to unleash their Mingo allies on a wave of terror
through the English settlements.
The Prairie (1827) takes up Natty in his eighties, driven by the continuous march of
civilization to his last refuge on the Great Plains across the Mississippi. On this vast and barren
stage, the Sioux and Pawnee, the outlaw clan of Ishmael Bush, and members of the Lewis and
Clark expedition enact a romantic drama of intrigue, pursuit, and biblical justice that reflects
Cooper's historical dialectic of culture and nature, of the American nation and the American
continent.
1. What common themes are woven throughout these three books of the Leatherstocking Tales?
2. What may have motivated James Fenimore Cooper to write stories with these plotlines and themes
during the time of the 1820s?
3. Cooper and his works are often referred to when discussing nationalism and the Era of Good
Feelings in American History. Why do you think this is the case?

The Notch of the White Mountains

by Thomas Cole (1839)

1. Where do you think this location would be in the United States?

2. Why do you think the artist chose this location?
3. What imagery stands out to you? What do you notice?
4. If you were to paint a picture of your favorite location in the United States, what would you paint?
How would your painting differ from this one?