Domestic Manners of the Americans

Domestic Manners is only one of many 19th-century travelogs about America by European writers. After the founding of the American republic, curiosity about the “American experiment” spread, and many European thinkers were eager to observe the new republic. The impetus for Trollope’s book came from two works by her friends and colleagues: Fanny Wright’s Views of Society and Manners in America (1821) and Basil Hall’s Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828 (1829).

Wright’s book (like Trollope’s) concentrated on everyday life and customs in America, but it was largely laudatory. Hall, a captain in the British navy, went to the US with his wife to observe American society, and his observations as reported in his book were far more negative, causing Hall to be attacked in the American press. Trollope in her book follows Hall’s critical stance, even taking up an entire chapter (31) to defend Hall and his book.

By far the best known of the travelogs is Democracy in America by the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, published in 1840. Tocqueville goes beyond domestic concerns to focus on the political structure of the United States and, in particular, how democracy creates a distinctive cultural and social