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GEORGIA IMAGINED, GEORGIA ILLUSTRATED: READING THE LANDSCAPE, 1717-1859 by CHRISTOPHER ROLAND LAWTON (Under the Direction of John C. Inscoe) ABSTRACT This dissertation is built around William and T. Addison Richards’s Georgia Illustrated (1842), the first travel book about the Deep South to be written and published within the region. To create a context for understanding the book and its authors, I begin by exploring how and what antebellum non-Southerners thought they knew about the state. The first two chapters trace the roots of their shared knowledge to 18th- and early-19th century travel texts in which Georgia was repeatedly documented as an idea rather than a reality. Through this process outside observers cast the state as a distant and dangerous Other in order to reify their own sense of self and home. I then use this construct to examine Georgia Illustrated through a post-colonial lens, as a case study of how one set of residents found a voice, imagined themselves as they wanted to be seen, and responded. The meaning of Georgia Illustrated is inextricably intertwined with the lives of its authors and their history in the now-forgotten college town of Penfield. To tell this story is to reconstruct the world of the bookstore their family operated there, the role of books in their lives, and their lives in what was, at the time, an aspirational cultural and intellectual center. Perhaps most importantly, it is also to reveal a fleeting moment of antebellum possibility. Georgia Illustrated not only promoted the state’s landscape as being as quintessentially American as Northeastern locales, but also dismissed regional stereotypes by proclaiming the existence of a vibrant Southern intelligentsia. Northern presses lavishly and widely praised the book at the time of its publication, and it launched the careers of its creators. Yet within a decade of its publication, the shifting political climate left no place for a book that denied the hallmarks of regional distinctiveness. The rise and fall of Georgia Illustrated mirrors the rise and fall of a certain strain of antebellum Southern intellectuals, filled with brilliant potential, yet ultimately suffocated by both the stereotypical imaginings of outsiders and the political posturing of their own neighbors. INDEX WORDS: Antebellum Georgia, Colonial Georgia, Landscapes in Art, Travel Writing, History of the Book, Southern Sectional Identity, Postcolonial Theory, T. Addison Richards, William Carey Richards, Adiel Sherwood, Penfield, Ga. GEORGIA IMAGINED, GEORGIA ILLUSTRATED: READING THE LANDSCAPE, 1717-1859 by CHRISTOPHER ROLAND LAWTON B.A., Rutgers University, 1994 M.A., University of Georgia, 2000 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2011 © 2011 Christopher Roland Lawton All Rights Reserved GEORGIA IMAGINED, GEORGIA ILLUSTRATED: READING THE LANDSCAPE, 1717-1859 by CHRISTOPHER ROLAND LAWTON Major Professor: John C. Inscoe Committee: Stephen Berry Allan Kulikoff Laura Mason Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2011 DEDICATION For my daughter, who came into the world just after I started this Ph.D. program; for my mother, who left it just before I finished; and for my father, who stuck by me through it all. With love. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the advice, encouragement, and seemingly-endless support of John C. Inscoe, University Professor and Albert W. Saye Professor of History at the University of Georgia. I owe him an enormous debt of thanks. John has been a great mentor and a good friend; the decision to study under him was one of the best I have ever made. He has shaped my ideas, edited and re-edited my writing, patted me on the back when I needed it most, bought me lunch far too often, and been a most extraordinary model of what a scholar and a gentleman should be. There are few people I look up to more. I have also been fortunate to have worked with and learned from an exceptional committee. Stephen Berry is a gifted writer and a most insightful human being and it has been a blessing to have him read and comment on this text. His quiet efforts on my behalf have meant the world to me and I am deeply appreciative. Allan Kulikoff has been a kind and enthusiastic guide to the historian’s craft. I am constantly amazed at the breadth of his interests and the depth of his knowledge, and my graduate studies have been greatly enriched by his wisdom. Likewise, Laura Mason has constantly challenged me to read more broadly, dig more carefully, and look with more analytically-precise eyes. She took my beginner’s interest in the methods of cultural history and taught me how to give it shape, hone it, and use it. My research for this project was made possible by the support of multiple institutions. An Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society allowed me to spend a summer voraciously reading through their unmatched collection of 18th- and 19th-century travel accounts of Georgia. A Dissertation Fellowship from the Gilder Lehrman Institute v allowed me to spend ample time in Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, as well as in the New York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, and the University Archives of New York University. A John Eugene and Barbara Hilton Cay Visiting Scholar Grant from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provided me with the luxury of many fruitful days in the Southern Historical Collection. The erudite scholars of the St. George Tucker Society were kind enough to welcome into their midst, read my work as part of the Cleanth Brooks Dissertation Forum, and respond with a barrage of comments that significantly fine- tuned my approach to this project. I have also benefitted from substantial time in the Georgia Archives, the Atlanta History Center, the Special Collections Library at Mercer University, the Greene County Probate Court, and especially the Hargrett Library at the University of Georgia. The Department of History and the Graduate School at the University of Georgia have provided constant and generous support throughout this entire process: research and teaching awards have encouraged me to keep moving forward, travel grants have sent me to speak at conferences across the South and as far off as England and Australia, and a Dissertation Completion Grant allowed me much-needed time away from teaching to sit and think and write. My time in LeConte Hall has also been greatly enriched by the presence of a number of smart colleagues and good friends. Lesley-Anne Reed has patiently listened to almost every idea I have had about this project, helped me to refine the few good ones, and kindly counseled me to discard the rest. Christina Davis has been a most patient writing partner and has spent the better part of a year sitting across a table from me, encouraging me to put words on the page, believing I could finish even when I doubted it most. Mark Evans, Ed Hatfield, Chris Huff, Barton Myers, Tom Okie, and Bert Way have all lent an ear and have all contributed in significant ways to my understanding of Southern history and the reasons for telling it. Janice Simon, of the Lamar vi Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, taught me much of what I know about how to read a landscape. Cynthia Lollis, now of Savannah College of Art and Design, has long been a great friend and has also been an invaluable resource on printing and bookmaking. Finally, when all else is said and done, all that is left is family. My sister and brother-in- law, my niece and nephew, my father, and especially my daughter are the most important people in my life. I wish I knew how to adequately acknowledge their contributions to making this dissertation possible, but words fail me against a debt so large. Thank you, Karen, Fisher, Isabelle, Lawton, Dad, and Harper, for everything. I cannot imagine where I would be without you. C.R.L Athens, Georgia November 2011 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION: THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE LANDSCAPES OF GEORGIA ILLUSTRATED ....................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 CONTESTING “THE MOST DELIGHTFUL COUNTRY OF THE UNIVERSE” ..28 2 IMAGINING “THE WILD AND LITTLE KNOWN” ...............................................62 3 THE VIEW FROM REV. RICHARDS’S BOOKSTORE ........................................104 4 GEORGIA ILLUSTRATED: CONSTRUCTING CIVILIZATION ..........................130 5 GEORGIA ILLUSTRATED: CONSTRUCTING NATURE .....................................172 EPILOGUE…. .............................................................................................................................213 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................240 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Frontispiece: T. Addison Richards, Self Portrait, oil on canvas (1840) ………………………….1 Figure 1.1: Robert Montgomery, “A plan representing the Form of Setling [sic] the Districts, or County Divisions in the Margravate of Azilia,” (1717)

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