Our inclination to compartmentalize areas of study in colleges and universities has some unfortunate effects. Students learn about romanticism in their literature and music and art-history classes, but they sometimes fail to take the next step and apply to life itself what they have learned about representations of life. They may need direction to see that a wistful hope for something better and expectations of eternal improvement are romantic ideas that may affect political and economic decisions. Students will find useful a lecture that explores the political attitudes and culture of antebellum America, with its odd combination of hard-headed realism, romanticism, and nationalism.

Nationalism was closely allied with romanticism, and it is no exaggeration to say that Americans believed in their superiority to all other countries. A lecture on the U.S. state of mind--with consideration of romanticism, liberalism (in the sense of laissez-faire), and nationalism as salient characteristics of the antebellum period--will be very helpful to students. Consult Russell Blaine Nye, Society and Culture in America, 1830-1860 (1974), and Rush Welter, The Mind of America, 1820-1860 (1975). Two older books that are still quite useful are Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief (1957) and Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought (1943), Parts 4 and 5.

If one lecture includes discussion of the notion of progress, another might trace in some detail a specific instance of technological progress. Improvements in transportation and communication make a dramatic story that will help underline some of the reasons for American self-confidence and belief in the future. The use of coastal trade, the turnpike, the river, the canal, and the railroad is a story that is told in economic histories of this country such as Douglass C. North, The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790-1860 (1961), and even more clearly in Gary M. Walton, History of the American Economy (eighth edition; 1997). See also David Freeman Hawke, The Nuts and Bolts of the Past: A History of American Technology, 1776-1860 (1988); Judith A. McGaw, editor, Early American Technology: Making and Doing Things from the Colonial Era to 1850 (1994); and Brook Hindle and Steven Lubar, Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution, 1790-1860 (1986). A look at a particular and fascinating technological development can be found in Maureen Ogle, All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1890 (1996).

The United States was still principally a rural nation at midcentury, but cities were becoming increasingly important. Why were cities founded where they were? Was their location just happenstance? Was there a particular confluence of geographic, economic, and accidental factors? Instructors may wish to approach this important question by giving a general explanation of the principles involved. An urban history like Eric C. Monkkonen, America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities and Towns, 1780-1980 (1988), will tell the story. Then provide some case studies using as an example a city in the vicinity of the college or university or some other city that would serve as a good example. City biographies include, in the East, Edward K. Spann, The New Metropolis: New York City, 1840-1857 (1981); George K. Lankevich, American Metropolis: A History of New York City (1995), and Selma Berrol, The Empire City: New York and Its People, 1624-1996 (1997). For the South, see Thomas J. Wertenbaker, Norfolk: Historic Southern Port (revised edition; 1962); Virginius Dabney, Richmond: The Story of a City (1976); Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City (1989); and Patricia Evridge Hill, Dallas: The Making of a Modern City (1996). For the Midwest, see Bayrd Still, Milwaukee: The History of a City (revised edition; 1965); A. Theodore Brown, Frontier Community: A History of Kansas to 1870 (1964); Carol Poh Miller and Robert Wheeler, Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796-1990 (1990). and Donald L. Miller, City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (1996). For the very Far West, see Edward D. Beechert, Honolulu: Crossroads of the Pacific (1991).