Books+ Search Results
Grand Emporium, Mercantile Monster : The Antebellum South's Love-Hate Affair with New York City
Title
Grand Emporium, Mercantile Monster : The Antebellum South's Love-Hate Affair with New York City / Ritchie Devon Watson Jr.
ISBN
9780807180068
Publication
Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2023]
Manufacture
Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2023
Copyright Notice Date
©[2023]
Physical Description
1 online resource (254 pages).
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
Includes index.
Description based on print version record.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
"Focusing on the crucial period of 1820 to 1860, Grand Emporium, Mercantile Monster examines the strong economic bonds between the antebellum plantation South and the burgeoning city of New York that resulted from the highly lucrative trade in cotton. In this richly detailed work of literary and cultural history, Ritchie Devon Watson Jr. charts how the partnership brought fantastic wealth to both the South and Gotham during the first half of the nineteenth century. That mutually beneficial alliance also cemented New York's reputation as the northern metropolis most supportive of and hospitable to southerners. Both parties initially found the commercial and cultural entente advantageous, but their collaboration grew increasingly fraught by the 1840s as rising abolitionist sentiment in the North decried the system of chattel slavery that made possible the mass production of cotton. In an effort to stem the swelling tide of abolitionism, conservative southerners demanded absolute political fealty to their peculiar institution from the city that had profited most from the cotton trade. By 1861, reactionary circles in the South viewed New York's failure to extend such unalloyed validation as the betrayal of an erstwhile ally that in the words of one polemicist deemed Gotham worthy of being "blotted from the list of cities." Drawing on contemporary letters, diaries, fiction, and travel writings, Grand Emporium, Mercantile Monster provides the first detailed study of the complicated relationship between the antebellum South and New York City in the decades leading up to the Civil War"-- Provided by publisher.
Variant and related titles
Project MUSE complete collection 2023.
Other formats
Online version: Watson, Ritchie Devon, Jr., 1943- Grand emporium, mercantile monster Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2023]
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
July 19, 2023
Series
Southern literary studies
Contents
That most southern connected of northern cities
The greatest emporium of the western hemisphere: the South travels to Gotham
Early fictional appraisals of New York City
Blotted from the list of cities: southern writers assail Gotham
William Gilmore Simms, William Cullen Bryant, and the breaking of the hinge of union
Execrable New York.
Subjects
Also listed under
Project Muse. distributor
Bookmark As
Citation
