BRYANT, William Cullen (ed.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In. First edition of this monumental work of celebratory Americana, edited by the Romantic poet William Cullen Bryant and abundantly illustrated. One of the triumphs of 19th-century American popular publishing, it reflects a moment of national assertion, reflection, and reconciliation.The work "enabled Americans, after the trauma of the Civil War, to construct a national self-image based on reconciliation between North and South and incorporation of the West... Its voluminous text and over 900 pictures represented the first comprehensive celebration of the entire continental nation. By testifying to the variety, uniqueness, and potential wealth of the American landscape and the advanced civilization of its cities, Picturesque America laid the foundation for a resurgence of nationalism rooted in the homeland itself, rather than in institutions of democracy as would have been the case earlier in the century... Picturesque America is one of the most important sources for understanding how Americans thought about themselves, their landscape, and the rest of the world in the decade following the Civil War" (Rainey, p. xiii and jacket).

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