Front cover image for A nation of speechifiers : making an American public after the Revolution

A nation of speechifiers : making an American public after the Revolution

In the decades after the American Revolution, inhabitants of the United States began to shape a new national identity. Telling the story of this messy yet formative process, Carolyn Eastman argues that ordinary men and women gave meaning to American nationhood and national belonging by first learning to imagine themselves as members of a shared public. She reveals that the creation of this American public--which only gradually developed nationalistic qualities--took place as men and women engaged with oratory and print media not only as readers and listeners but also as writers and speakers. Eas
eBook, English, 2010
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010
History
1 online resource (xi, 290 pages) : illustrations
9780226180212, 9781282895447, 9786612895449, 0226180212, 1282895443, 6612895446
676697579
Messy beginnings
Demosthenes in America
From sensibility to nationalism in elocutionary education
Vindicating female eloquence
Girls' oratory and the rise and fall of a female counterpublic
Mourning for Logan
"Indian eloquence" and the making of an American public
"A club is a nation in miniature"
Young men on the make and their debating societies
Saint Franklin
Journeymen printers and the medium of democratic virtue
"Who's afraid" of Frances Wright?
Media debates about the public and its spokesmen in 1829
The ongoing process of making an American public
English