Interpreting Travel Writings of the Ticknors and Other Privileg
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WHAT AMERICANS SAID ABOUT SAXONY, AND WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THEM: INTERPRETING TRAVEL WRITINGS OF THE TICKNORS AND OTHER PRIVILEGED AMERICANS 1800-1850 by ASHLEY SIDES Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2008 Copyright © by Ashley Sides 2008 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To God I am thankful for the fascinating complexity of humanity, which makes the study of history so challenging and interesting, and for the opportunity and ability to pursue studies of this history. I am also deeply grateful for the support of my wife, Jamie, through this process. From the very beginning she has made my goals hers, has encouraged me, and has patiently sacrificed to help me get through this Master’s program. I dedicate this work to her. I have been blessed to study under excellent professors at the University of Texas at Arlington. Some, in particular, stand out. Professor Thomas Adam has been the most important influence in my graduate studies. He introduced me to the Ticknors and their journals in the first place, and has mentored me through a graduate research assistantship and this thesis. I am indebted to him for the topic of this thesis, which he suggested and I ultimately found quite fascinating. Professors Steven Reinhardt and Joyce Goldberg have helped me to improve my writing by their strict emphasis on good use of language. I also greatly enjoyed working for Professor Goldberg as a graduate teaching assistant, in the process learning a lot about the art of teaching college students. Finally, I feel honored to have had Professor Dennis Reinhartz on my thesis committee before his retirement. His approval of my research papers has always given me confidence, and his deep knowledge of history in many diverse areas is inspiring. March 31, 2008 iii ABSTRACT WHAT AMERICANS SAID ABOUT SAXONY, AND WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THEM: INTERPRETING TRAVEL WRITINGS OF THE TICKNORS AND OTHER PRIVILEGED AMERICANS 1800-1850 Ashley Sides, M.A. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2008 Supervising Professor: Thomas Adam In the first half of the nineteenth century, Saxony became an increasingly popular destination for American travelers. After first examining the forces behind the travel trends in order to provide historical context, this study analyzes American travelers’ perceptions of Saxony as recorded in their travel writings, with particular emphasis on George and Anna Ticknor’s journals from Europe. In doing so, it sheds light on aspects of Anglo-American leisure-class identity between 1800 and 1850. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, educated upper-class New Englanders had very little real knowledge of Germany and its people, and their only image of Saxony iv would likely have been in connection with Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. What information these Anglo-Americans did have about the current literature and thought of Germany generally came via English-language magazines, often first published in Britain. But at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, travel to and within Europe began to be attractive, especially as word spread among American elites that Germany offered the best universities in the world. George Ticknor and a handful of other young New England aristocrats studied at Göttingen with such success and fame that it began a snowballing trend of American students flocking to German universities for the next century. Meanwhile, privileged Americans increasingly began to discover the attractions of Germany in other capacities as well, often as a part of a Grand Tour of Europe that served to enhance their status in society. Though Germany initially lagged far behind more familiar destinations like Great Britain, France, and Italy in popularity, by the middle of the nineteenth century, it was on the rise as a favorite destination for American travelers. When, in the process of traveling Germany, Americans discovered the small Kingdom of Saxony tucked away into the heart of the German Confederation, it quickly won their praise and by mid-century was becoming a beloved place to visit or even reside. Again, George Ticknor (with his family this time) was at the forefront of this trend, settling in Dresden for half a year in 1835-1836. Welcomed into the highest noble and royal societies of Saxony, the Ticknors (as Boston Brahmin taste-makers) were likely to have been major factors in fanning the flames of later American enthusiasm for Saxony. The perceptions that the Ticknors and other contemporary American travelers v revealed about Germany—and Saxony in particular—reflected aspects of their own identities. For example, they admired the Saxon monarch and royal family. When they favorably compared the “liberal” Saxon court with the “despots” of other European countries, this indicated their American republican heritage. On the other hand, when they sided with the “paternally beneficent” government of the Saxon king against the “ingratitude” of the people, they underscored their own patrician background and authoritarian ideals. Meanwhile, they lauded the Saxon educational system and the enlightened state of the general population, showing the importance they placed on public education and responsibility. They raved about the cultural treasures in the museums of Dresden, because they appreciated cultivation, yet had little access to such quality collections in America. Their response to commercial Leipzig was ambivalent, but courtly and refined Dresden appealed to these aristocrats. Believing that the quality of the soil has a strong effect on the quality of a population, they adjusted their impressions of the complex Saxon/Prussian border regions to fit whatever stereotype they wanted to emphasize at the time: that of the enlightened but unjustly persecuted Saxon peasants or that of the miserable degraded Prussian boor. The observations reflected in early nineteenth-century American travel writings reveal that images of the “other” were fluid and depended on the viewer’s own state of mind, background, and value system. In writing about their perceptions of other lands and peoples, these American travelers actually revealed a lot about themselves. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT............................................................................................................... iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS..................................................................................... xi INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... xii PART 1. UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN TRAVEL TO GERMANY Chapter Page 1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND .................................................................. 2 1.1 Relevant History of Saxony to 1850.................................................. 2 1.2 Introducing George and Anna Ticknor.............................................. 7 2. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN TRAVEL TO GERMANY IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY.............................................. 10 2.1 Limited American Familiarity with Germany and Saxony around the Turn of the Century...................................... 10 2.1.1 Knowledge about Germany in the early USA.......................... 10 2.1.2 Anglo-American knowledge about Saxony............................. 16 2.2 Anglo-American “Discovery” of Germany and Saxony ................... 21 2.2.1 Americans studying in Germany.............................................. 24 2.2.2 Non-student American travelers to Germany........................... 33 vii 2.3 American Travel Literature as a Window to Nineteenth-Century American Travel Patterns to Europe.................................................. 36 3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN TRAVEL TO SAXONY............ 46 3.1 Early, Limited American-Saxon Trade Relations.............................. 46 3.2 American Travelers Discover the Attractions of Saxony, Especially Dresden............................................................................. 48 3.2.1 Early American responses to Dresden, and their influences on public perceptions of Saxony.............................................. 49 PART 2. IMAGES OF SAXONY AS A FOIL FOR INTERPRETING ASPECTS OF AMERICAN IDENTITY 4. AMERICAN TRAVELERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF GERMANS AND GERMANY..................................................................... 62 4.1 What Travel Writings Can Tell Us.................................................... 62 4.1.1 Using travel writings about others to learn more about their authors.................................................................... 62 4.1.2 Why the Ticknors’ travel journals are so important................. 63 4.2 Germans and Germany Viewed through American Eyes.................. 67 4.2.1 Experiencing borders: American travelers’ recognition of Germany’s fragmented nature.............................................. 69 4.2.2 Generalized stereotypes of the Germans.................................. 75 4.2.3 Regional stereotypes of the Germans....................................... 77 4.2.3.1 Northern vs. Southern Germany.................................. 77 4.2.3.2 Prussia as an example of more localized distinctions.. 85 5. AMERICAN TRAVELERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SAXONS AND SAXONY...........................................................................