Domestic Manners Of The Americans Fanny Trollope 9781470090852 Books
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Domestic Manners Of The Americans Fanny Trollope 9781470090852 Books
This is another of a multitude of books that people can obtain for free from amazon and other sources because the book's copyright has expired and the book is in public domain. People should take advantage and enjoy these classics.This one is a first-hand description of what a sharp woman with a keen eye and a sense of perspective and humor was able to see during her visit to early America, and tell what she saw and heard with superb writing skills with interesting narratives. Readers can learn more from this book about early America and in a more delightful manner than in most history books.
Frances M. Trollope (1779-1863) was an English novelist who published over 100 novels, including an anti-slavery novel that influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe. She gained notice for this book, her first book "Domestic Manners of the Americans" (1832) about her visit the America, that disparaged Americans and all the cities and towns she and her children visited in 1827 for over three years, until 1831. The book is very witty and filled with interesting details and anecdotes, as are most of her novels. While popular in her own day, she is little known today, which is a shame because her novels are quite funny and reveal life as it was lived in the early nineteenth century. Her son Anthony, best known as author of The Warden, is better known today than his mother.
Trollope describes such things as the crocodile infested muddy waters of the Mississippi and the shabby huts that sometimes decorate its shores. She tells a tale of a man who accidentally built his hut near a crocodile nest and awoke to find his family eaten. The Americans she saw were taller than Europeans and good looking, but the men seemed unable to stop chewing tobacco and spitting. They ate with their large knives and picked their teeth with their pocket knives, in a rush, hardly speaking during the meal.
She tells anecdotes such as houses of Cincinnati needing to throw all their rubbish into the center of the streets and pigs come and consume it; there was no other disposal possible. The streets of Cincinnati lacked drainage and mud accumulated in the lower streets in profusion after rains.
She tells readers that Americans lack refinement. They all seem to focus on accumulating money. They emphasize equality for all, meaning all white males, but this has many deleterious effects upon the people, including uncouth behavior and dress and inability to say "thank you." She describes her difficulties in finding "help," what she calls servants, since American girls, even very young ones, feel it is beneath them because all people are equal and should be free. She tells how she met the newly elected President Jackson and how she was appalled with the informality in which he was treated.
She found women in early America treated much worse than in England; they were virtual slaves; young women looked haggard and old. Men and women were generally segregated, not because of religion, but because the men preferred it so, so that they could drink and play cards. She tells how since America has no state religion, as in England, the land is filled with ignorant itinerant preachers who preach nonsense and who take advantage of housewives who give them money their husbands would have refused to donate. She describes pitiful camp and revival meetings, mostly attended by women. Life was also hard for men, but much less so, and both men and women frequently became ill and died. Meat was very plentiful so that many people, even those who were poor, ate meat three times a day, but this did not improve their health.
The Americans she met during her years in America despised England and the English, she tells rather remarkable tales of the mistaken notions that the Americans of the time had about England, such as only nobles were treated well and the streets of London were filled with dirt and bugs. She wrote that American newspapers have more falsehoods than any other country, especially its comments on England and descriptions of its inhabitants. Yet, Americans loved titles: women were called Lady and men with military rank were called by their rank.
Trollope describes slavery in America and deplores it, although she states that generally slaves are treated better than free `help" because the former are like property which owners do not want to lose. The Americans often treat their slaves as pieces of furniture; she saw a girl who wouldn't allow a man to touch her dress in front of a slave. Yet, Trollope feared that freeing all slave would cause a dangerous situation in America.
Trollope writes that she disliked America and the manners and civility of its citizens. Her greatest criticism is for the hateful manner in which the American males treat women and how both sexes treat Native Indians, and her feelings that separation of Church and State and America's insistence that all people are equal are wrong and harm people.
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Domestic Manners Of The Americans Fanny Trollope 9781470090852 Books Reviews
It's easy to see why this book was not popular in the U.S. when it was published, but Frances Trollope (the mother of novelists Thomas and Anthony Trollope) was likely spot on with her telling observations of life and behavior in the erstwhile colonies. Ms. Trollope was not a tourist in America; it was her intent to to make a home for her financially reduced and displaced family in whatever world she discovered at the end of her ship's journey.
Gamely digging in, yet clearly discombobulated, Ms. Trollope is best when relating her experiences with her new neighbors and fellow travelers, and unintentionally amusing when making bewildered apples-to-oranges comparisons of class manners between the old world and the new. However discomfited by them she may have been, Ms. Trollope gifts us with sometimes startling, yet completely believable stories of our boisterous, opinionated and relentless ancestors.
No doubt to the relief of all parties, Ms. Trollope and her family eventually returned to England and she had the good sense to wait until she arrived safely back to publish this delightful memoir. "Domestic Manners of the Americans" is an easy, entertaining read and a uniquely personal view of a hardy people carving life out of the wilderness, manners be damned.
Fanny Trollope left England with her sons in 1828, landed at New Orleans, traveled up the Mississippi on an early steamboat and kept a lovely, detailed, viciously catty diary of her journey and adventures in the great wilderness of early America. And her observations about American self-aggrandizement, short-sightedness, and genially accepted attitudes about class and caste in the US are still so relevant today.
For example -- as her steamship makes its way up the river, she finds her male traveling companions are mainly barge workers headed back upriver for their next barge to guide down. Well, while they may address each other as "Colonel" and "Major" and the like (tho' never "Captain"; he's on the deck piloting the ship), they act more like animals in the dining room -- eating their food with a knife and no fork, grabbing whatever they want without a single "Excuse me," between the lot...and spitting on the floor so much and without even trying to aim for a spittoon, it was impossible to keep herself dry or her dress clean. She reached the point where she hated the call for dinner, no matter how hungry she was.
However, when the ship had to stop for wood, those same men had no problem happily jumping onto the riverbanks and helping to bring in a supply. Apparently it was part of the cost of their passage back up the Mississippi. So she had to give them that, regrettably.
Oh, and her comments on the idiocy of the layout of Cincinnati are just plain lovely.
Apparently, Mrs. Trollope's book, which she wrote upon her return to England after her disastrous stay in Ohio, was one of the inspirations that lead de Tocqueville to do his own journey to the US to contemplate democracy in America and her sons to become writers of their own. Yes, we are talking about the mother of Anthony Trollope.
I bought the book on an associate's recommendation and am glad I did. The only issue I have is the old English style of putting a comma after practically every phrase; that took some getting used to. But overall it's a lovely, laugh-out-loud funny dissection of the American psyche as it was then...and still mainly is. Well worth the read.
This is another of a multitude of books that people can obtain for free from and other sources because the book's copyright has expired and the book is in public domain. People should take advantage and enjoy these classics.
This one is a first-hand description of what a sharp woman with a keen eye and a sense of perspective and humor was able to see during her visit to early America, and tell what she saw and heard with superb writing skills with interesting narratives. Readers can learn more from this book about early America and in a more delightful manner than in most history books.
Frances M. Trollope (1779-1863) was an English novelist who published over 100 novels, including an anti-slavery novel that influenced Harriet Beecher Stowe. She gained notice for this book, her first book "Domestic Manners of the Americans" (1832) about her visit the America, that disparaged Americans and all the cities and towns she and her children visited in 1827 for over three years, until 1831. The book is very witty and filled with interesting details and anecdotes, as are most of her novels. While popular in her own day, she is little known today, which is a shame because her novels are quite funny and reveal life as it was lived in the early nineteenth century. Her son Anthony, best known as author of The Warden, is better known today than his mother.
Trollope describes such things as the crocodile infested muddy waters of the Mississippi and the shabby huts that sometimes decorate its shores. She tells a tale of a man who accidentally built his hut near a crocodile nest and awoke to find his family eaten. The Americans she saw were taller than Europeans and good looking, but the men seemed unable to stop chewing tobacco and spitting. They ate with their large knives and picked their teeth with their pocket knives, in a rush, hardly speaking during the meal.
She tells anecdotes such as houses of Cincinnati needing to throw all their rubbish into the center of the streets and pigs come and consume it; there was no other disposal possible. The streets of Cincinnati lacked drainage and mud accumulated in the lower streets in profusion after rains.
She tells readers that Americans lack refinement. They all seem to focus on accumulating money. They emphasize equality for all, meaning all white males, but this has many deleterious effects upon the people, including uncouth behavior and dress and inability to say "thank you." She describes her difficulties in finding "help," what she calls servants, since American girls, even very young ones, feel it is beneath them because all people are equal and should be free. She tells how she met the newly elected President Jackson and how she was appalled with the informality in which he was treated.
She found women in early America treated much worse than in England; they were virtual slaves; young women looked haggard and old. Men and women were generally segregated, not because of religion, but because the men preferred it so, so that they could drink and play cards. She tells how since America has no state religion, as in England, the land is filled with ignorant itinerant preachers who preach nonsense and who take advantage of housewives who give them money their husbands would have refused to donate. She describes pitiful camp and revival meetings, mostly attended by women. Life was also hard for men, but much less so, and both men and women frequently became ill and died. Meat was very plentiful so that many people, even those who were poor, ate meat three times a day, but this did not improve their health.
The Americans she met during her years in America despised England and the English, she tells rather remarkable tales of the mistaken notions that the Americans of the time had about England, such as only nobles were treated well and the streets of London were filled with dirt and bugs. She wrote that American newspapers have more falsehoods than any other country, especially its comments on England and descriptions of its inhabitants. Yet, Americans loved titles women were called Lady and men with military rank were called by their rank.
Trollope describes slavery in America and deplores it, although she states that generally slaves are treated better than free `help" because the former are like property which owners do not want to lose. The Americans often treat their slaves as pieces of furniture; she saw a girl who wouldn't allow a man to touch her dress in front of a slave. Yet, Trollope feared that freeing all slave would cause a dangerous situation in America.
Trollope writes that she disliked America and the manners and civility of its citizens. Her greatest criticism is for the hateful manner in which the American males treat women and how both sexes treat Native Indians, and her feelings that separation of Church and State and America's insistence that all people are equal are wrong and harm people.
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