In this well-researched study, Maura Lyons addresses the question, What did the phrase American art mean in 1834 when William Dunlap published his two-volume History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States? Although Dunlap's book, replete with the biographies of nearly 300 visual artists, is seen today as a foundational text in the creation and construction of American art history, it had actually faded into obscurity by the end of the nineteenth century. Drawing on manuscript and periodical sources from the period, Lyons furnishes the first full-scale analysis of...