American Culture, 1776-1815

FAIN: FA-11564-76

Joseph J. Ellis
Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA 01075-1423)

A study of the cultural and intellectual history of the United States in the decades immediately following the American Revolution. Book will consist of 7 chapters: an introductory essay on the relationship between cultural priorities and what Americans called "public virtue" during the “American Enlightenment;" then a series of 5 biographical essays, approximately 30 pages each on Brackenridge, Dunlap, Fulton, Rush and Peale; then a final chapter on the unforeseen cultural consequences of republicanism that troubled prominent American artists and intellectuals in much the same way as they would trouble Alexis de Tocqueville. Men to be studied all shared a conviction that their lives their cultural achievements were governed by moral principles.