Messy beginnings -- Demosthenes in America -- From sensibility to nationalism in elocutionary education -- Vindicating female eloquence -- Girls' oratory and the rise and fall of a female counterpublic -- Mourning for Logan -- "Indian eloquence" and the making of an American public -- "A club is a nation in miniature" -- Young men on the make and their debating societies -- Saint Franklin -- Journeymen printers and the medium of democratic virtue -- "Who's afraid" of Frances Wright? -- Media debates about the public and its spokesmen in 1829 -- The ongoing process of making an American public
Summary
In the decades after the American Revolution, inhabitants of the United States began to shape a new national identity. Telling the story of this messy yet formative process, Carolyn Eastman argues that ordinary men and women gave meaning to American nationhood and national belonging by first learning to imagine themselves as members of a shared public. She reveals that the creation of this American public--which only gradually developed nationalistic qualities--took place as men and women engaged with oratory and print media not only as readers and listeners but also as writers and speakers. Eas
