PEOPLE

P.T. Barnum

. Connecticut showman, founded traveling circus

. Exploited American curiosities and filled gap in working-class entertainment left by changing standards of theatre

. Nicknamed the "Prince of Humbug"

James Gordon Bennett

. Newspaper publisher, founded New York Herald, 1835

. Ushered in era of mass media with sensationalist newspaper reporting

Jonathan Cilley

. Democratic congressman from Maine

. Killed in duel, 1838; death spurred national outcry against dueling

Davy Crockett

. American frontiersman and politician

. Created new, particularly American type of common-man hero

Ralph Waldo Emerson

. Major American intellectual, leading transcendentalist

. Mentor of Thoreau

Nathaniel Hawthorne

. American novelist, author of works including The Scarlet Letter, 1850

. Considered one of great American writers of nineteenth century

Helen Jewett

. High-class prostitute murdered in New York brothel, 1836

. Sexually charged depiction of her murder sold thousands of copies of New York Herald, driving growth of popular media

Thomas "Daddy" Rice

. White entertainer, performed in blackface minstrel shows

. Inventor of racially mocking "Jim Crow" dance, 1832

Harriet Beecher Stowe

. Abolitionist author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, published 1852

. Exposed hundreds of thousands of northerners to horrors of slavery

Henry David Thoreau

. Major American intellectual, leading transcendentalist

. Essayist, author, naturalist

. Wrote Civil Disobedience, Leaves of Grass

EVENTS

1814 Treaty of Ghent

. Officially ended War of 1812, marked beginning of antebellum period

1820 Gaslights Introduced in New York

. Made possible new culture of urban nightlife in America

1833 New York Sun First Published

. First affordable newspaper, cost 1 cent

. Beginning of modern newspaper industry

Panic of 1837

. Severe six-year economic depression

. Caused by financial panic, doomed presidency of M. Van Buren

1849 Astor Place Riot

. Riot broke out in New York after fans of rival stage actors attacked each other

. Essentially class warfare; elitist actor attacked by supporters of more populist one

. 22 killed, 100 injured

. Following riot, theatre shifted from rough working-class audience to more refined middle-class clientele

GROUPS

Transcendentalists

. American philosophical school, proposed that intuition should guide the spirit and rationality was secondary

. Major figures included Thoreau, Emerson, Fuller

CONCEPTS

"Noble Savage"

. Idealized embodiment of "best" Native American qualities

. Inherently nostalgic notion of Indian culture

Minstrelsy

. Racist form of entertainment for whites, popular in 19th-cenury America

. Whites (and some blacks) performed in blackface to exaggerate black characteristics

Penny press

. Low-cost newspapers that often sensationalized stories for wide audiences

. Profited on rising literacy levels among ordinary Americans

. New York Sun, Herald were first major examples