Copyright by Paul Joseph Erickson 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Paul Joseph Erickson certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Welcome to Sodom: The Cultural Work of City-Mysteries Fiction in Antebellum America Committee: William H. Goetzmann, Supervisor Robert Abzug Elizabeth Engelhardt Steven Hoelscher Michael Winship Welcome to Sodom: The Cultural Work of City-Mysteries Fiction in Antebellum America by Paul Joseph Erickson, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2005 For my Parents, Theodore and Marilyn Erickson Acknowledgments The number of debts that one incurs over the course of a graduate school career—particularly one as long as mine—is virtually endless. The process simply would not happen were it not for the support of not only formal institutional structures, but also the countless networks of friends and loved ones that sustain those of us who have chosen to go tilting at scholarly windmills. My first debt of gratitude is to the Department of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Not only was I provided with generous financial support for my first several years in the program, but the faculty and administrative staff created an environment of intellectual stimulation with a surprisingly low level of bureaucratic horror given the size of the university. Professor William Goetzmann, who supervised this dissertation, and for whom I wrote the paper out of which it grew, is owed a particularly large debt. He is present in the work in more ways than he likely realizes. Although he likely despaired of ever seeing it completed, his patience and guidance have both been indispensable. Also deserving of thanks for providing valuable insights (along with heroically reading the entire thing) are the members of my committee: Robert Abzug, Elizabeth Engelhardt, Steve Hoelscher, and Michael Winship. Over the course of my years in graduate school, Janice Bradley, Cynthia Frese, and Melanie Livingston in the departmental office saved me innumerable headaches and made life easier in almost every way imaginable. The fellow students I encountered in the American Studies department at UT were one of the brightest and most collegial graduate school cohorts I have ever heard of. v Aside from the stimulating atmosphere of intellectual companionship, the department was full of people with a gift for friendship, which will stay with me much longer than any academic discussions we may have had. For both reasons, and for making life in Austin such a joy, special (although by no means exclusive) thanks are due to: Ole Bech Petersen, Carolyn De La Pena, Bill Fagelson, Lara Fischman, John Haddad, Matt Hedstrom, Karen King, Sarah Mullen, Ray Sapirstein, Mark Metzler Sawin, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Cathy Turner. Throughout my doctorate work, I have been blessed by generous financial support from a wide range of research libraries and fellowship programs. Without them, there is little question that this dissertation never would have been finished (a dubious honor, perhaps). The University of Texas Preemptive Fellowship and Thematic Fellowship Program provided full years of support at crucial junctures. A year of support from a Charlotte Newcombe Fellowship allowed much of the initial writing to be completed, and allowed me the flexibility to live close to the books, rather than having to travel to visit them. A year at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania not only put me in touch with a group of scholars that was entirely new to me, it also pushed me to think of the project in a different light, looking backward into the colonial and early American period as well as forward toward the Civil War. For providing much needed support during that year, thanks are due to Richard Dunn, Dan Richter, and Amy Baxter Bellamy. The cohort of fellows at the Center my fellowship year was a wonderfully stimulating group, as well as terrific companions in exploring Philadelphia, including Evan Haefeli, Brooke Hunter, Eric Slauter, and Mark Thompson. vi For a project such as this, which is entirely reliant on holdings in rare-book collections, fellowship support for research is absolutely critical. Invaluable support has been provided by a Rosenwald Fellowship at the New-York Historical Society; a Huntington Fellowship at the Huntington Library; a William B. Reese Fellowship from the Bibliographical Society of America; and a Northeast Modern Language Association Summer Research Fellowship. Of particularly critical importance were an Andrew Mellon Foundation fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia, and a Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society. Most research in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American history and literature would be simply unthinkable without the resources—both archival and human—at these two libraries. In addition to their magnificent holdings, their centrality in the field enables them to do more to build a community of scholars than almost any other institutions I can think of. At the Library Company, I am especially indebted to Jim Green, Phil Lapsansky, Jessy Randall, and the incomparable Wendy Woloson for making my time there both enjoyable and productive. At AAS, my list of debts is too long to be comprehensively listed here, but it includes John Hench, Caroline Sloat, Georgia Barnhill, Laura Wasowicz, Marie Lamoreux, Bill Young, Joanne Chaison, and the tremendous staff of archivists and curators who kept my work in mind as I came and went over the years. Even more importantly, I had the good fortune to be at AAS at the same time as Renée Sentilles and Brett Mizelle, two brilliant scholars of nineteenth-century American who have provided both intellectual and personal support beyond measure over the years. vii Much of the actual writing of this dissertation took place in Boston, under the ideal conditions of the Phillips Reading Room in Widener Library. Friends, colleagues, and drinking companions who sustained me during my Boston sojourn include Erin Anderson; Andrew, Rachel, and Noah Beckwith; Chris Capozzola; Jennie Goloboy; Beth Johnston; Michael Keogh; Megan and Dan Nelson; Debbie Palliser; and Jay Reed. Particular thanks are due to Megan Nelson for both guiding me through the thickets of borderlands studies and introducing me to her own Cambridge Mafia. The final mad dash to completion of the dissertation took place back in New York, where the entire graduate school escapade began. The arduous last stretch was greatly eased by the support of Sean Costigan, the late Diane Downey, Sybil Eng, Amy Kates, Jocelyn Lee, Ray Sapirstein, Katie Sedgwick, and AnnaMaria Turano. Along the way, although attached to no particular place, I have come into contact with many scholars of nineteenth-century America, many of whom seem to pop up again and again, wherever I go. I owe debts to more of these people than I can count, for both companionship and intellectual stimulation, but particularly deserving of thanks are Donna Dennis, Kimberly Gladman, Haven Hawley, Brian Luskey, Mike Millner, and Dave Stewart. Two friends who have been there from the beginning, and always will be, are Mark Edstrom and Sean Costigan. To say that I can’t imagine my life without them is no overstatement. Both have provided both material, emotional, and intellectual support beyond measure over the years, and both have housed me on more of my various jaunts than they likely care to remember. Simple thanks are not enough. viii Finally, thanks are due to my parents, Theodore and Marilyn Erickson, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. I’m quite certain that they had very little idea what I was up to these last several years (not that I always did, either), but their love and support, along with their reticence in asking questions, made all the difference. Along with the rest of my extended family, they provided a respite from matters antebellum that was often desperately needed. The “paper” is finally done. ix Welcome to Sodom: The Cultural Work of City-Mysteries Fiction in Antebellum America Publication No. _________ Paul Joseph Erickson, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2005 Supervisor: William H. Goetzmann This dissertation will examine a genre of popular fiction from antebellum America known as the “city-mysteries” novel. These novels, which enjoyed great popularity from the early 1840s to 1860, appeared in the wake of several European examples, most notably Eugene Sue’s The Mysteries of Paris (1840-41) and G. W. M. Reynolds’ The Mysteries of London. While written about a wide range of American cities, from the burgeoning metropolitan areas of the Eastern seaboard to small New England towns to rising Western cities, these novels shared a concern with “removing the veil” from the hidden operations of urban life. In their presentation of the process of x urbanization, this body of literature helps reveal the ways that popular writers, as well as elite thinkers, were coming to terms with the sudden increase in the size, density, and diversity of urban areas in antebellum America. The dramatic changes wrought in the lives of many ordinary Americans by the growth of cities raised a number of questions of ethical and religious significance that these novels help address: Is it possible to be a “good” American in a large city? A good neighbor? A good republican? A good Christian? These novels, along with the vast body of tracts, sermons, reform literature, newspapers, children’s books, and other popular print forms, offer a window onto how everyday Americans thought about the urban environment. While these novels were written and purchased in large part for their entertainment value, and their depiction of both how enjoyable and frightening city life could be, they also contained a great deal of information—both accurate and false—about the cities that they described that would have shaped the thoughts and imaginations of their readers.