FOR THE FIRST TIME AMERICAN ARTISTS WERE WRITING, PAINTING AND SINGING

ABOUT LIFE IN AMERICA.

AMERICAN LITERATURE, ART

AND MUSIC IN THE 1800S

CA 8th Grade US History Standard 8.4.4

LITERATURE

• 1800’s literature illustrated daily life in early America.

• Famous Authors of the 1800’s• Washington Irving wrote• Rip Van Winkle, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The

Sketchbook • Theme - change occurs but traditions remain

• James Fenimore Cooper wrote• The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans

• Theme – life on the frontier

• Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote• The Scarlet Letter

• Theme – morality, stigma’s, good v evil

• Herman Melville wrote• Moby Dick

• Theme – good v evil

LITERATURE

• Famous Authors of the 1800’s continued• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote• Paul Revere’s Ride

• Theme – American historical events

• Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote• Concord Hymn

• Theme – American historical event, spirituality and transcendentalism

• Henry David Thoreau wrote• Resistance to Civil Government

• Theme – civil disobedience, nature, abolitionism

• William Cullen Bryant wrote• Thanatopsis

• Theme – natural beauty, study of nature, understand life and death

ART

• Famous Artists of the 1800’s • Hudson River School• Theme – natural wonders, landscapes of the Catskills

Mountains and the Hudson River.• Established by Thomas Doughty• Artists: Thomas Cole, Asher Durand and George Caleb

Bingham

• Artists: George Catlin and Alfred Jacob Miller• Theme – Native American life, fur traders, riverboat

workers.

MUSIC

• Famous Musicians of the 1800’s • Stephen C. Foster• Performed musicals with American songs in large

cities and log cabins using banjos and pianos.• Combined African and European music to create a

uniquely American sound.• Songs: My Old Kentucky Home and Swanee River

ARCHITECTURE

• Architectural Themes of the 1800’s • Public buildings were modeled on classical styles

of Rome and Greece.• Private homes and plantations were modeled on

the style of Greek Revival .

CHANGES IN DAILY LIFE IN 1800’S

• Industrialization - buy rather than make goods.• Increased nationalism - success in the War

of 1812 led to an Era of Good Feeling.• Massachusetts and Pennsylvania started

public schools.• Move from rural to urban living due to

industrialization and factory jobs.