Critical Observations of an Evolving Culture Wesley Andrew Norton College

The time that Frances Trollope spent traveling the United States, would prove to be the most tumultuous era of cultural redefinition in our nation’s history. As the years unfolded, the United States firmly rebuked its colonized heritage and allowed a socio-political wedge to divide the nation firmly along the notion of what it means to be a man worthy of freedom. As Trollope traveled, she wrote extensively on the natural beauty found throughout the wilderness of the United States as well as the incredibly varied beauty and inspiration of city structure and life. Her engagement with the American people produced stark commentary on the customs of America, a large portion of which she found to be horrendously lacking in the finer aspects of life, as well as general European manners. Her criticisms of these manners (or perceived lack there of) ultimately highlight how the culture of the United States had begun to shift due to the politics of populism, the dynamic role of religion in society, and the ever present and increasingly pressing question of race.

Despite Trollope’s many criticisms of the American south, she never failed to find an inherent beauty in the natural environments that surrounded the sparsely placed urban...