Americans of the early Republic valued the art of eloquence, upholding the ideal that an impassioned, intelligent, and moral speaker will provide essential truths to a democratic audience. Drawing on nonfiction prose of the 1830s-1850s--especially orations, lectures, and addresses--James Perrin Warren sketches a cultural history of the reforming power of language.

Antebellum America truly defined itself as a culture of eloquence. This disposition could be seen in the creation of new cultural spaces, such as the lyceum and popular lecture system, for speakers who were then measured...

This study situates John Burroughs, together with John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, as one of a trinity of thinkers who, between the Civil War and World War I, defined and secured a place for nature in mainstream American culture. Though not as well known today, Burroughs was the most popular American nature writer of his time. Prolific and consistent, he published scores of essays in influential large-circulation magazines and was often compared to Thoreau. Unlike Thoreau, however, whose reputation grew posthumously, Burroughs wasa celebrity during his lifetime: he wrote more than thirty...