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George Lippard's the Quaker City Undergraduate Review Volume 10 Article 21 2014 Decay and Perversion in Jacksonian America: George Lippard’s The Quaker City Keith Lydon Follow this and additional works at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Lydon, Keith (2014). Decay and Perversion in Jacksonian America: George Lippard’s The Quaker City. Undergraduate Review, 10, 97-103. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol10/iss1/21 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Copyright © 2014 Keith Lydon Decay and Perversion in Jacksonian America: George Lippard’s The Quaker City KEITH LYDON Keith Lydon is a n the United States, the period between the termination of the 18th century graduating senior and the commencement of the 19th century is characterized by the struggle to forge a national identity that was uniquely American in its indepen- majoring in Criminal dence from European influence. American writers of this period understood Justice and minoring Ithat the creation of an American literature distinct from the influence of Europe in English. His research and shaped by the social, political, and natural environment of the United States project was completed in the summer would provide the country with the first vestiges of the autonomous cultural iden- tity it so desperately desired. However, this work proved to be problematic, as of 2013 under the mentorship of with little financial or even cultural incentive to develop this American litera- Dr. Ann Brunjes (English) and made ture, many of these writers, once so enthusiastic in assisting in the development possible with funding provided by of this fledgling nation, had resorted to writing in a style imitative of European literary models. Though largely unknown to or ignored by contemporary scholar- an Adrian Tinsley Program summer ship, American author George Lippard dutifully remained at the vanguard of the research grant. Keith presented struggle known as the Subversive movement, convinced of his belief that literature this paper at the 2014 National is integral to the development of a national identity. Permeated with the scandal- ous, the sensational, and the gothic, Lippard’s Subversive style is as wild, savage, Conference on Undergraduate and unrefined as the fledgling nation that served as its inspiration. Ultimately, Research (NCUR) in Lexington, KY. though it may seem as though George Lippard and his Subversive utilization of the gothic and the sensational seem to be on the periphery of American literature, they actually had a powerful influence over the evolution of American literature as well as American cultural identity as a whole. Lippard was deeply influenced by his alliance with the radical democrats, an extremist political group of the early 19th century committed to the eradica- tion of what they perceived as the pervasive corruption within the American party system as well as the American government as a whole. He was also pos- sessed of a religious fervor bordering on fanaticism, and considered literature an instrument with which it was possible to stimulate the social and political interest of society and subsequently advance societal reform (Renaissance 198, City xi). Through the intensely political novel The Quaker City (1845), Lip- pard seeks to expose the vast network of organized corruption that pervades American society, the institutionalization and subsequent perversion of reli- gion, and the potential danger associated with the American proliferation of the ideals of the European Enlightenment. The corruption and subsequent degradation of institutions over time and at the hands of the strong willed and powerful is a reoccurring theme in George BridgEwatEr StatE UNiVErSitY 2014 • thE UNdErgradUatE ReviEw • 97 Lippard’s personal and professional life. According to David now forged into the almost militant hatred that would fuel his Reynolds, one of the few scholars to study Lippard extensively, macabre and menacing portrayal of them in The Quaker City contempt for institutional corruption is a characteristic that (City xi). can be traced to Lippard’s ancestors, German Palatines who fled to America in an effort to escape religious persecution at the After his departure from the Garretson’s School and upon hear- hands of the institutionally corrupt Roman Catholic Church ing of the impending death of his father, Lippard returned to (City ix). These tormented German pilgrims were granted Philadelphia but received no portion of his father’s estate and asylum in a new land that promised unfathomable freedom was suddenly plunged into poverty (City x). Realizing his lack and opportunity. The fierce appreciation and protectiveness of of options Lippard elected to remain in Philadelphia and ac- American ideals that this promise engendered within them was quired two law-assistant jobs as a means of financial support. passed down through subsequent generations and became the Lippard’s time in Philadelphia coincided with the great depres- driving creative force behind Lippard’s work. sion of 1837 to 1844 and his lack of money and homelessness allowed him firsthand experience of the social and political un- Lippard spent his formative years on an ancestral farm in Ger- rest that plagued the city in the form of bank failures, worker mantown, Pennsylvania under the care of his grandfather and strikes, unemployment and starvation (City xi). It seemed to two aunts where his frail form, strong mind, and intense nature Lippard that among the indigent of Philadelphia, especially made him stand out among his peers as “a queer fellow of no vulnerable were women, and all were fighting for survival while account” and brought to his attention at an unusually early age being attacked on all fronts by greed-crazed bankers, hypocriti- the arbitrary nature of social hierarchy and society’s undervalu- cal preachers, a capricious and opportunistic news media and, ation of unique and critical thought. Haunted by his status as perhaps most offensive, a lazy and self-indulgent literary com- an outcast and a preoccupation with mortality, Lippard used munity. religion as a means of comfort, painstakingly studying the bible and interpreting the word of God with his characteristic intense In Lippard’s words, “a literature which does not work prac- idealism that would be the foundation of his future unforgiv- tically for the advancement of social reform, or which is too ing criticism of what he perceived to be misuse or exploitation good or too dignified to picture all the wrongs of the great mass of institutionalized religion in The Quaker City (City x). of humanity, is just good for nothing at all” (qtd.in City viii). Through his various life experiences Lippard had been gifted, In an effort to escape poverty, Lippard’s aunts sold the family or cursed depending on perspective, with firsthand knowledge farm and the land it occupied, robbing Lippard of his youthful of the many cancerous frauds that threatened the future moral home and prompting him to brood over why “this old house, function of not only the city of Philadelphia but the country as this bit of land could not have been spared from the land sharp- a whole. Lippard believed that the United States of America, a er and mortgage hunter” (City x). This experience embittered nation that shielded his Palatine ancestors from religious perse- Lippard towards those “destroyers of the homestead” who par- cution and offered them freedom and opportunity, was decay- ticipated in the American capitalist economic system, which ing in the hands of new economic, religious, and political lead- in his view encouraged the utilization of the darkest aspects of ers while every day drifting farther and farther away from the human nature and placed greater value in profit, expansion, intentions of the men involved in its foundation. To Lippard, and urbanization than in morality, ethics, and even religion. religion had become a shadow of its former ethical and moral In fact, in his mind the capitalist American economic system glory. The press had forsaken journalistic integrity and become had become a formidable institution in its own right, and was at best an overly sentimental tranquilizer of the unruly masses responsible for the rapid replacement of the virtuous worship and at worst an opportunistic scavenger. And most damning of of God in small and rural communities with the blasphemous all, the capitalist American economy had replaced the word of worship of the dollar in sprawling and dangerous cities (Lip- God and become an object of dedicated and feverish worship pard 67). If at this point in his life Lippard placed any genuine in its own right. trust in institutionalized religion, his enrollment at Catherine Livingstone Garretson’s Classical School in Rhinebeck, New Lippard and others believed the United States was in need of York quickly extinguished it (City xi). Upon realizing that the literature capable of exposing the “social life, hidden sins, and school’s clergyman director fell short of the level of devoutness inequities covered with the cloak of authority” that pervaded and piety that Lippard believed a man in his position must pos- the country as well as a writer that would not flinch from the sess, he deemed the school a breeding ground for future cor- inevitably powerful backlash that comes with defying the au- rupt and hypocritical preachers and quickly left, his feelings for thority of those in positions of power (qtd.in City viii). Lippard perverse religious institutions and duplicitous religious leaders did not flinch but imbued such a wild and infernal energy into 98 • thE UNdErgradUatE ReviEw • 2014 BRIDGEwater State UNIVERSITY The Quaker City that Reynolds’ description of him as a “liter- change. In reality Petriken is a meek and dispassionate fraud ary volcano constantly erupting with hot rage against America’s who publishes only overly sentimental and ineffectual drivel ruling class” is inarguably apt (xii).
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