Early America -Growing a Country through the Arts by Johanna Mahal https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7 Made with love en-us 2017-02-15 18:53:48 UTC 2026-02-20 07:27:06 UTC hello@padlet.com Explore jmahal https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154131792 Reading Further - A New Literature Celebrates a New Nation
As the country grew, American writers began to develop a uniquely American literature. Stories and novels took place in beautiful American settings. They also focused on distinctly American topics, both celebrating the new nation and pondering its future.

Rip Van Winkle, the title character of an 1819 short story by Washington Irving, was a happy man. He lived in New York's lush Hudson Valley and spent his days hanging out with his friends, shooting squirrels, and avoiding his domineering wife.

One afternoon, as he rested in the hills after hunting with his dog, Rip heard someone call his name. He saw a strange-looking, elflike man who wanted his help. Rip helped the little man carry a heavy keg to a green valley. There he saw more small, oddly dressed men, who were bowling on a lawn.

Rip wondered if there was something magical about the scene. How had the little man known his name? And why, every time a ball hit some pins, did thunder roar? Soon Rip's curiosity about what was in the keg—and his desire to avoid his wife—overcame him, and he had a drink. He had a few more drinks, and then he fell asleep.

When Rip woke the next morning, everything had changed. The little men were gone, and when he made his way home, he saw that his “village seemed altered; it was larger and more populous” than it had been when he had left. He felt that the “character of the people seemed changed.” A “busy, bustling” tone had replaced the “drowsy tranquility” that Rip had known. In fact, Rip Van Winkle had slept for 20 years, although it felt like just one night to him.

Rip soon discovered that he had become an old man. “He found himself stiff in the joints,” and he looked different. When he passed the local villagers,

They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever
they cast eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins.
The constant recurrence of this gesture, induced Rip, involuntarily, to
do the same, when, to his astonishment, he found his beard had
grown a foot long!

—Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle,” from The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, 1819

More than Rip's appearance had changed during his long night. While he slept, the American colonies had fought and won a war for independence. Imagine Rip's confusion on visiting the local tavern, where the political changes were visible.

He recognized on the sign . . . the ruby face of King George, under
which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe, but even this
was singularly metamorphosed [transformed]. The red coat was
changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was stuck in the hand
instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat,
and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERALWASHINGTON.

Talking with the townsfolk, Rip discovered what had happened. “Instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third,” he found out, “he was now a free citizen of the United States.”

In the story “Rip Van Winkle,” 20 years seemed to pass overnight. A man fell asleep, and the colony where he lived had become part of a new country. Many people consider “Rip Van Winkle” to be the United States' first short story. Written not long after independence, it expressed wonder and shock at how quickly a revolution had happened and how much it had changed the lives of the people of the new nation.

Washington Irving was not the only writer to choose American topics for his work. At the same time Irving was writing, James Fenimore Cooper penned the first American novels. Set in the fictional town of Templeton, New York, The Leatherstocking Tales told about the settlement and rapid disappearance of the frontier.

The Pioneers was the first of the series, written in 1823. It introduced readers to Natty Bumppo. This fictional character, a former wilderness scout, was probably modeled after Daniel Boone. He was called Leatherstocking because he wore leather chaps to cover his legs. In Cooper's novels, Natty Bumppo tried to protect both nature and his own way of life from the onslaught of civilization.

In one scene, Cooper described the clash between the pioneers, who represented civilization, and a flock of birds, which represented nature. The excitement began early one morning. “The gulls are hovering over the lake already,” one Templeton resident exclaimed, “and the heavens are alive with pigeons. You may look an hour before you can find a hole through which to get a peep at the sun.”

The excited townspeople gathered. Cooper wrote, “If the heavens were alive with pigeons, the whole village seemed equally in motion with men, women, and children.” They brought their guns—all kinds of guns—and started to shoot at the pigeons. There were so many birds that the hunters didn't even need to aim. They simply shot into the air and the pigeons fell. At one point, the hunters grew so enthusiastic that two of them brought out a cannon to shoot even more pigeons. That was too much for Natty Bumppo. He harshly criticized the settlers for recklessly spoiling nature:

“This comes of settling a country!” he said. “Here have I known
the pigeon to fly for forty long years, and, till you made your
clearings, there was nobody to skear [scare] or to hurt them.
I loved to see them come into the woods, for they were company
to a body, hurting nothing—being, as it was, as harmless as a garter-snake.”

—James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers, 1823

In describing the hunters as not even bothering to see whether the birds were dead or to pick them up off the ground, Cooper seemed to agree with Natty that the settlers threatened the natural world.

On the other hand, the settlers did have some valid reasons for their actions. Cooper sympathized with them, too. One hunter, Billy Kirby, heard Natty's outrage and replied,

“What! old Leather-Stocking,” he cried,
“grumbling at the loss of a few pigeons! If you
had to sow your wheat twice, and three times,
as I have done, you wouldn't be so massyfully
[mercifully] feeling toward the divils. Hurrah,
boys! scatter the feathers!”

The settlers were farmers, and the birds threatened the crops they needed to survive. In Cooper's eyes, the settlers' motive was as valid as Leatherstocking's anger. But the needs of nature and the needs of the pioneers clashed—and would continue to clash—until the settlers finally won out.


A Disappearing World
Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper were two of the first truly American writers. Both had lived overseas and wanted Europeans to respect the budding American culture. Both saw themselves as voices for the new nation.

The content of their writing was distinctly American. Irving and Cooper set their stories in the beautiful American landscape. They also addressed American issues. They were proud of their new country. But they also knew that, along with the nation's growth, there would be unforeseen changes.

]]> 2017-02-15 19:12:36 UTC https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154131792 "America" jmahal https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154143200 1832 Samuel Francis Smith]]> 2017-02-15 19:41:36 UTC https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154143200 Early American Spirituals jmahal https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154147849 Before 1865
The tunes and the beats, before 1865
The tunes and the beats of negro spirituals and Gospel songs are highly influenced by the music of their actual cultural environment. It means that their styles are continuously changing.

The very first negro spirituals were inspired by African music even if the tunes were not far from those of hymns. Some of them, which were called "shouts" were accompanied with typical dancing including hand clapping and foot tapping.

SHOUTS
After regular a worship service, congregations used to stay for a "ring shout". It was a survival of primitive African dance. So, educated ministers and members placed a ban on it. The men and women arranged themselves in a ring. The music started, perhaps with a Spiritual, and the ring began to move, at first slowly, then with quickening pace. The same musical phrase was repeated over and over for hours. This produced an ecstatic state. Women screamed and fell. Men, exhausted, dropped out of the ring
Some African American religious singing at this time was referred as a "moan" (or a "groan"). Moaning (or groaning) does not imply pain. It is a kind of blissful rendition of a song, often mixed with humming and spontaneous melodic variation.

]]> 2017-02-15 19:54:54 UTC https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154147849 1800s Dance jmahal https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154150024 2017-02-15 20:01:29 UTC https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154150024 Hudson River School of Painting jmahal https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154159489 https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/the-hudson-river-school/]]> 2017-02-15 20:31:13 UTC https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154159489 Davy Crockett jmahal https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154161412 “Bear Hunting in Tennessee” by Davy Crockett. 

In the fall of 1825, I concluded I would build two large boats, and load 
them with pipe staves [narrow strips of wood] for market. So I went down 
to the lake, which was about twenty-five miles from where I lived, and 
hired some hands [workers] to assist me, and went to work; some at boat 
building, and others to getting staves. I worked on with my hands till the 
bears got fat, and then I turned out to hunting, to lay in a supply of meat. 
I soon killed and salted down as many as were necessary for my family; 
but about this time one of my old neighbours, who had settled down on 
the lake about twenty-five miles from me, came to my house and told me 
he wanted me to go down and kill some bears about in his parts. He said 
they were extremely fat, and very plenty. I know’d that when they were 
fat, they were easily taken, for a fat bear can’t run fast or long. But I asked 
a bear no favours, no way, further than civility [politeness], for I now had 
eight large dogs . . . so that a bear stood no chance at all to get away from 
them. So I went home with him, and then went on down towards the 
Mississippi, and commenced hunting.



In the fall of 1825, I concluded I would build two large boats, and load 
them with pipe staves [narrow strips of wood] for market. So I went down 
to the lake, which was about twenty-five miles from where I lived, and 
hired some hands [workers] to assist me, and went to work; some at boat 
building, and others to getting staves. I worked on with my hands till the 
bears got fat, and then I turned out to hunting, to lay in a supply of meat. 
I soon killed and salted down as many as were necessary for my family; 
but about this time one of my old neighbours, who had settled down on 
the lake about twenty-five miles from me, came to my house and told me 
he wanted me to go down and kill some bears about in his parts. He said 
they were extremely fat, and very plenty. I know’d that when they were 
fat, they were easily taken, for a fat bear can’t run fast or long. But I asked 
a bear no favours, no way, further than civility [politeness], for I now had 
eight large dogs . . . so that a bear stood no chance at all to get away from 
them. So I went home with him, and then went on down towards the 
Mississippi, and commenced hunting.



]]> 2017-02-15 20:37:03 UTC https://padlet.com/jmahal/znzhv1bvloo7/wish/154161412