Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s History. We’ve been going through Unit 4 of the AP U.S. History curriculum and in this video we’ve got to talk about the distinct American culture that was pushing its head out of the birth canal in the period 1800-1848. So if you’re ready to get them brain cows milked, let’s get to it. So it was during this period that we got ourselves a truly distinct American culture. Prior to this most of the art and architecture and philosophy peddled here in America was deeply shaped by European influences. For example if you give a good squeeze to any of the foundational documents of our fair nation, then you’d better have a towel because you’re gonna have Enlightenment thought dripping all over the floor. But as this period progressed rational Enlightenment thinking gave way to feeling and thought that was shot through with Romanticism. And this shift is going to be exceedingly important because it’s going to give rise to a significant religious movement called the Second Great Awakening and a buttload of social reforms, both of which will have their own videos forthcoming. So in this video we’re just going to look at how this new way of thinking expressed itself in literature, art, philosophy, and architecture in the early American republic. Now Romanticism, as a way of thinking, trades the cold, angular rationality of Enlightenment thought for the warmth of emotion and desire, and then adds a little spice of the belief in human perfectibility for taste. So let’s look first at how that feely feely stuff expressed itself in architecture. Much of the architecture in the colonial period and just after was built after the British Georgian style, which was more restrained and symmetrical. During this period, we see the transition to a more Greek and Roman revival architecture. After all the Greeks and Romans loved democracy, so do we, let’s build like them. And so you can see this especially in the architecture of Washington D.C., and even more especially in the Capitol Building with its arches and towering dome. If you’ve ever seen it in person, you know that it takes your breath away, and that’s what Romanticism is all about. Next, let’s have a look at how American culture was developed through literature. In the early 1800s Americans gobbled up the novels of British writer Sir Walter Scott whose heroic characters and classical historical settings epitomized the Romantic movement. But by the 1820s, American authors were taking these elements and sifting them through a distinctly American sensibility. James Fennimore Cooper’s book Last of the Mohicans romanticized the opportunity and danger of the mysterious western lands of America. Another significant writer of this period was Washington Irving whose famous stories Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow recast America’s landscape and people into a world of fantasy. Additionally, Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. And while this isn’t really literature, it was used in an extended network of schools and academies and had the effect of standardizing spelling and pronunciation of American English. Next, let’s have a look at what’s going on in the world of art, and for this I need to introduce you to the Hudson River School. This school of artists used their canvases to portray dramatic renditions of American landscapes. These artists devoted their paintings to the pristine and untouched land of the American continent, though often they also included hints of the encroachment of civilization which they believed had arrived to spoil it. And what you really need to understand about all these paintings in general is this: as their painters channeled the Romanticism of the age, they often emphasized sentiment and emotion at the expense of accuracy. Okay, now let’s have a gander at the unique American philosophy that arose during this time, and the name for it is Transcendentalism. This philosophy was deeply rooted in the Romantic view of the transcendent power and beauty of nature, and also emphasized what I mentioned before, namely, the belief in human perfectibility. The first transcendentalist you need to know is Ralph Waldo Emerson whose writings emphasized individualism and self-reliance. Next came Henry David Thoreau who decided to put all of his beliefs to the test and live in a cabin in the woods by a pond for two years. He aimed to live as simply as he could and to use his ponderings on nature to understand the great truth about life and the universe, and to see if human perfection was attainable. So romantic. Anyway, he wrote all of these musings down in his most famous book called Walden. Also along these lines there was a huge movement during this time for people to move away from society and create their own utopian communities. SO romantic. And let me give you just a couple examples. First, you had the Shakers. This was a Christian group who established their community in Kentucky. They held property in common and they were NOT fans of men and women enjoying conjugal union, and so it’s not surprising that with few external converts coming in, they kind of died out for lack of repopulation. Another utopian community you should know about is the Oneida Community. They dedicated themselves to perfect equality both socially and with respect to property, which they held in common. Eventually this equality spread to marriage and parenting. Everybody was everybody’s spouse and every kid was everybody’s kid. But despite the controversy this stirred up from outside the community, they did manage to make some nice silverware that kept them solvent financially. So all of this to say, Americans worked hard to form their own culture during this time that reflected their own values and their own sense of personhood. Okay, that’s what you need to know about Unit 4 topic 9 of the AP U.S. history curriculum. If you want to enter a utopia of review for this course and get yourself an A in your If you’re feeling all romantic after this, then go ahead and subscribe and I shall keep making videos for you.