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Frenchifying The Frontier: Transnational Federalism In The Early West, Keri Holt

English Faculty Publications

The antebellum West was a hotbed of literary activism. Western presses published more than one hundred local newspapers and literary magazines from the late 1820s through the 1850s. Cities such as Vidalia, Lexington, Marietta, New Orleans, and Cincinnati were thriving literary centers, boasting numerous bookshops, libraries, theaters, and literary societies, including the Semi-Colon and Buckeye clubs of Cincinnati, where members exhibited their western pride by discussing the work of local authors while drinking beverages from buckeye bowls.¹ The “West” at this time was located much closer east and south than the West we know today. It encompassed, roughly, the …