'Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art' (1849--1852) and antebellum American culture.

摘要

This study explores Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art, a monthly magazine published in Philadelphia from 1849 to 1852. The dissertation focuses on the ways the magazine reflected and encouraged the development of a quickly growing American middle class. I offer a chapter on the history of Sartain's, paying particular attention to the magazine's interactions with contributors and to internal and external pressures leading to its financial demise. The Sartain Collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania furnishes key materials for this history.; The following two chapters probe the magazine's literary philosophy, as especially demonstrated in its poetry, and its approach to the fine and decorative arts, as evident in its columns on art, music, flowers, architecture, and fashion. I argue that the magazine reflected and encouraged through each of these a distinctly American and middle-class approach.; The next chapter sketches out the specific types of morality and religious belief embraced by the magazine. In particular, Sartain's joined in a growing nineteenth-century tendency to portray Christ as a humble and suffering servant who offers comfort to readers, and it reflected a degree of respect for other world religions. The magazine also aimed to promote and provide literature that might be termed as inherently moral and tasteful. While Sartain's avoided controversial issues such as slavery, it consistently promoted what I term a “democratic morality,” a morality inherently American and middle-class.; The final major chapter considers the magazine's implicit and explicit commentary about gender. I assert that Sartain's contributed to women's advancement through occasional articles in favor of women's issues, but especially aided in expanding their career options through the inclusion of the work of many women writers in a magazine aimed at an audience comprised of both genders.