Domestic Manners of the Americans

by Frances Milton Trollope

I am convinced there is no writer who has so well and accurately (I need not add, so entertainingly) described [America] ... as you have done"—Dickens to Fanny Trollope, 1842

When Fanny Trollope set sail for America in 1827, she took with her three of her children and a young French artist. She left behind her son Anthony, growing debts and a husband going slowly mad from mercury poisoning. But her hopes of joining a Utopian community of emancipated slaves were soon dashed, and she and her children were forced to live by their wits in Cincinnati, then a booming frontier town on the Ohio River. What followed was a tragicomedy of illness, scandal and failed business ventures that left them destitute.

Nevertheless, on her return to England, Fanny turned her misfortunes into a remarkable book. Domestic Manners was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. A masterpiece of nineteenth-century travel-writing, it is also a timeless satire on a society torn between high ideals and human frailties. It remains as perceptive and funny today as it was when it was first published."

Genres: History, Travel, Nonfiction, Classics, 19th Century, Memoir, Sociology

416 pages, ebook

First published March 19, 1832

About the author

Frances Milton Trollope (1779 – 1863), more popularly known as Fanny Trollope, was an English novelist and writer whose first book, Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), caused an international sensation upon its publication. Trollope’s more than 100 books include strong social novels, such as the first anti-slavery novel, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw (1836), which influenced Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe; the first industrial novel, Michael Armstrong: Factory Boy; and The Vicar of Wrexhill, which took on the corruption of the church of England; as well as two anti-Catholic novels, The Abbess and Father Eustace. Between 1839 and 1855 Trollope published her Widow Barnaby trilogy of novels, and her other travel books include Belgium and Western Germany in 1833, Paris and the Parisians in 1835, and Vienna and the Austrians. Her first and third sons, Thomas Adolphus Trollope and Anthony, also became writers; Anthony Trollope was influenced by his mother's work and became renowned for his social novels.
She is sometimes confused with her daughter-in-law, the novelist Frances Eleanor Trollope.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This travel book, by a sharp-eyed Englishwoman who wrote almost two centuries ago, not only shows us a young America which has changed greatly, but also reveals an archetypal American citizen who has changed much less than the country itself.

In 1827, her husband's law practice having failed, Frances Trollope set sail for the mouth of the Mississippi with three of her six children, hoping to relieve the pressure of family debt either by communal refuge or commercial enterprise. She quickly abandoned hopes for an interracial utopia in the Tennessee forest—the first sight of the Nashoba Community filled her with “desolation”—and soon traveled up the Ohio to seek her fortune in Cincinnati.

Although she did not admire the “Queen City of the West”—an “uninteresting mass of buildings” with poor drainage--she soon devised a stratagem for supporting her family there. She joined forces with Joseph Dorfeuille, the curator of a private natural history museum, who for the last three years had sought, with little success, to appeal to Cincinnati's best society. To save his beloved museum, he lowered his cultural standards and decided to add a waxworks display. One month after this addition, Fanny Trollope arrived.

Inspired by La Divina Commedia, Mrs. T. convinced Curator D. to sponsor what she called “The Infernal Regions”—located heterodoxically in an upper story of the museum—an exhibit populated by a waxwork Lucifer (with rolling eyeballs), waxwork demons, real honest-to-god skeletons of executed criminals, and featuring—courtesy of a local special-effects man named Powers—a fountain of flame, a frozen lake surrounded by columns of ice, and an electrified grate which not only served to block off entrance to the exhibit but also gave the too eager observer a little shock from hell.

Encouraged by success, Mrs. Trollope invested her profits in the “Trollope Bazaar,” a proposed cultural center where she planned to feature concerts, exhibits of art, lectures, and a market for luxury goods. Alas, the conception was too ambitious, the building itself too extensive; the goods Mr. Trollope sent from England were seized for debt, and the Trollope family was bankrupt.

Undaunted, Fanny, having borrowed money from friends, left Cincinnati for a tour of the eastern United Sates, determined to make her fortune by writing an account of her American travels. She found many vistas and prospects to admire—the grand expanse of Washington, the pastoral beauties of Virginia, the imposing grandeur of Niagara—and more aspects of the American character to deplore. Americans hated the book, but the English loved it; a great success, it endowed the Trollope family with a new fortune. Fanny went on to write more than forty books, most of them novels—her son Anthony, author of Barchester Towers, no doubt used her as a model for industry--but no subsequent book of hers was ever quite as successful as “Domestic Manners.”

Published a mere decade after Jane Austen's death, “Domestic Manners of the Americans” is reminiscent of the apparently artless yet pruned prose of the Regency, not yet overrun by the luxuriance of Romantic style. It is well written, witty and restrained in its manner, and apt in its observations.

The America Mrs. Trollope observes in 1828 is--except for the particulars--much like America today. She depicts a society marred by a greed unchecked by responsibility and an ostentation uninfluenced by elegance, low tax rates resulting in civic discomforts, a lack of appreciation and support for the arts, rudeness toward public figures including the president (Jackson), an addiction to low forms of popular media (newspapers), and an inordinate influence on public opinion by evangelical preachers of the most sensational, revivalist type. She observes a congress obsessed with state's rights, unwilling to allocate money for the least improvement (roads, canals, drainage), and a government capable of acting without honesty or integrity (“Indian Removal”). She describes a people whose belief in equality produces a contempt for both service and immigrant poverty but no repudiation of slavery, and generates an unwillingness both to dispense charity with generosity and to receive it with grace. Above all, she shows us an American people who, delighting in their unique marvel of a democracy, celebrate their particular freedom of speech by demanding that anyone who expresses the slightest criticism of their country should either cease immediately or be prevented from defaming what is--indisputably--the Greatest Country in the World.

[Michael Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country, is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess."

Trollope found Americans almost willfully uncultured. She was surprised at how poorly educated they were, and how much they resisted learning anything new. At the same time, these barely literate people had the temerity to view Shakespeare as obscene and Chaucer as superfluous.

Evangelical tent-meetings were held either as faddish shows for entertainment-starved Americans or were used for the sexual gratification of the preachers.

Her major outrage, however, was the hypocrisy of slavery. She despised Thomas Jefferson as a hypocrite.

super-reviewer Bill Kerwin, summarizes it well....

She depicts a society marred by a greed unchecked by responsibility.

She observes a congress obsessed with state's rights, unwilling to allocate money for the least improvement (roads, canals, drainage), and a government capable of acting without honesty or integrity.

She describes a people whose belief in equality produces a contempt for both service and immigrant poverty but no repudiation of slavery, and generates an unwillingness both to dispense charity with generosity and to receive it with grace.

Above all, she shows us an American people who, delighting in their unique marvel of a democracy, celebrate their particular freedom of speech by demanding that anyone who expresses the slightest criticism of their country should either cease immediately or be prevented from defaming what is--indisputably--the Greatest Country in the World.

[Petra X]

Fanny Trollope was Anthony Trollope's mother, an author and intellectual in her own right. This book annoyed half of the US because of her attitudes towards slavery, annoyed the rest of it because of her attitude towards everything else, and judging by the reviews, there are still a lot of Americans really annoyed by this book. I have to read it!

Moved to Put To One Side For Now shelf owing to the extremely annoying nature of Fanny Trollope. I tried reading it, not good, tried Librivox, much worse. Life is too short, but then again, one day...

[Axl Oswaldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please, imagine the following situation: you and three of your friends have decided to go on a trip, and therefore, have to settle on the places you will be visiting during your journey.
Here, four suggestions, each of one put forward by each of you, have been deeply considered, and finally, a decision has been made. But, alas! There’s a problem.
One of your friends, call him Peter, is quite picky and fastidious (you are fond of him despite his personality). Peter is not going to be happy unless you want to go to the places where he wants to go. Unfortunately, his suggestion wasn’t chosen; however, Peter decides to go with you even though he is angry and disappointed with this plan. He doesn’t want to visit the places where you will go, but he will try to do his best.
Can you imagine how this unlucky story ended up? You are right!, Peter complained during the whole trip; he did not like the food, he did not like the cities that you were visiting, he liked neither the people in those places, nor the traditions and costumes, and so on, and so on.
Peter was just fond of the landscape he could appreciate, or for instance, he enjoyed spending time in nature, but nothing more. Well, perhaps this won’t be the best trip of your lives, huh? Or maybe the next time you will decide not to invite Peter anymore, right?

Either option you choose, it’s totally fine. That being said, let me tell you that our previous story is a little bit similar to this book. The main differences are: we don´t have friends in the story, Peter is in fact our author, Frances Trollope, and furthermore, she didn’t want to visit a country in the first place; that country was The United States.

Domestic Manners of the Americans was published in 1832 as a travel book, based on Trollope’s travels through The United States between 1827 and 1830, where she describes her arrived in New Orleans, her two-year residence in Cincinnati, Ohio, and finally, a tour of cities such as Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Niagara Falls, and so on.

Her narrative is easy to read, captivating and, why not to say it, hilarious; on the other hand, the book sometimes turns out on a snobbish and completely subjective story, where her author can’t help but just complain about what she's seeing, and whose main purpose is to say: “I don’t like the United States”.

Funny to say I didn’t realize this book was not a novel, even after I read the first chapter. I thought it might have been like an introduction or something similar, but then I continued reading the next chapters and of course I thought, “this is absolutely non-fiction”. Certainly it was somehow a problem since I have been reading a non-fiction book for about 8 months and I haven’t been able to finish it (I know, quite embarrassing), but fortunately Trollope’s book doesn’t look like boring non-fiction – it was so compelling that I couldn’t help reading it in just a few days. In short, this book is worth giving it a shot.

Now, let’s back to my first story. Is our author somehow saying the truth about Americans or is she acting like Peter? For instance, is she being only subjective, and consequently so impartial that it is impossible to trust her? My short answer: I don’t know. On one hand, you as a reader can believe whether she is saying true facts about American manners or not, almost two centuries before, based on what you know as well as you have read about the context of that period of time; or you can just try to read this one as a memoir book with “fiction” statements, and therefore have some fun while you are reading it. On the other hand, the fact that Trollope could be sometimes offensive, other times quite direct, I believe this reading might 'annoy' some readers – especially the explicit way to talk about some people whom she met might be a little uncomfortable for someone to read (?). Perhaps I am just exaggerating, but for example, statements such as:

[1] "Let no one who wishes to receive agreeable impressions of American manners, commence their travels in a Mississippi steam boat; for myself, it is with all sincerity I declare, that I would infinitely prefer sharing the apartment of a party of well conditioned pigs to the being confined to its cabin."

[2] "I was then new to Western America, and unaccustomed to their mode of “getting along,” as they term it. This phrase is eternally in use among them, and seems to mean existing with as few of the comforts of life as possible."

[3] Let America give a fair portion other attention to the arts and the graces that embellish life, and I will make her another visit, and write another book as unlike this as possible.

[4] I speak not of these, but of the population generally, as seen in town and country, among the rich and the poor, in the slave states, and the free states. I do not like them. I do not like their principles, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions.

Are these lines offensive? Maybe not? It's up to you to say so.

For instance, if Trollope had lived in Mexico and she had said something like “Mexicans only eat tortillas and beans”*; well, besides the fact that this is not true, there are right ways to talk about cultures and people, and this is definitely not a good one.

But, hey!, not everything is negative in this book, since Trollope was really fond of nature and landscape views from the places where she went. I could notice that she loved being in contact with nature (most times), because of the way she describes every part of the background, and wow, I bet you wish being there since it sounds quite astonishing and beautiful. Her visit to Niagara Falls really surprised me - you can really feel the amazement and excitement she was feeling at that precise moment. Besides, even though it might sound unbelievable, she met people who became her friends, and she describes her relationships quite nice and enjoyable:

"I must record the pleasing recollection of one or two neighbours of more companionable rank, from whom I received so much friendly attention, and such unfailing kindness, in all my little domestic embarrassments, that I shall never recall the memory of Mohawk, without paying an affectionate tribute to these far distant friends."

Lastly, I would like to finish my review with one of the concluding paragraphs at which Trollope explains why she wasn’t fond of American people at all:

"If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess."

Please, don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed reading this book quite a bit, despite everything. And my best reward was to come across such an incredible author (another one) like Frances Trollope, an author from the nineteenth century – my favorite century to read literature so far.

* This is a true story, a foreign person told me this when I was living in Buenos Aires, and as you can imagine, it bothered me. No, not because this fact is neither true nor false, but because the person who said that was so discourteous, which reminded me of some Trollope’s manners to explain her reasons why she didn’t like the US (obviously, you can´t compare the 19th century to the 21st century, right?).

[Justin Pickett · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You will see them with one hand hoisting the cap of liberty, and with the other flogging their slaves.”

An educated, middle-aged English woman with sympathies for the enslaved and for Native Americans (“the native rightful lords of the fair land”), and an intense dislike of Thomas Jefferson, who she considered a liar, a hypocrite, and the propagator of “a mighty mass of mischief,” arrived in New Orleans on Christmas Day in 1827. Over the next several years, Frances Trollope, with her children and friends, traveled (via steam boat, horse carriage, etc.) from city to city, all the way to upstate New York. This is her ethnography of Antebellum America, which is so astute, candid, and cutting (“prose with serrated edges”) that it resulted in a new verb: “Trollopize,” meaning to abuse a nation. Yet, it was among Mark Twain’s favorite travel writings.

“I do not like them. I do not like their principles, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions.”

One of the most insightful and memorable parts of the book is Mrs. Trollope’s analysis of the effects of slavery on American culture. She argues that it desensitized Americans to others’ suffering—that it created a “total want of feeling.” She gives an example of a young, enslaved girl who ate a buttered biscuit that had been left out with arsenic on it to kill rats. Mrs. Trollope immediately doctored the poisoned girl, while the white slaveowners looked on with little concern about the child’s health; indeed, even the young white daughters lacked sympathy for the enslaved girl.

“My! If Mrs. Trollop has not taken her in her lap, and wiped her nasty mouth! Why I would not have touched her mouth for two hundred dollars!”

“In all ranks, however, it appeared to me that the greatest and best feelings of the human heart were paralyzed by the relative positions of slave and owner. The characters, the hearts of children, are irretrievably injured by it … The idea of really sympathizing in the sufferings of a slave appeared to them as absurd as weeping over a calf that had been slaughtered by the butcher.”

Mrs. Trollope also took particular interest in the gendered nature of leisure and religion, noting that men and women were separated in both, with the former turning to whisky and fun, while leaving the latter to hard, time-consuming domestic work and intense, fanatical religious services. The men disappeared to somewhere on Sundays, even though “chains [were] thrown across the streets … to prevent horses and carriages from passing,” while the women and girls went to church, again and again and again.

“How is it that the men of America … can leave those they love best on earth, bound in the iron chains of a most tyrannical fanaticism … Or do they deem their hebdomadal freedom more complete, because their wives and daughters are shut up four or five times in the day at church or chapel?”

“All the enjoyments of the men are found in the absence of the women. They dine, they play cards, they have musical meetings, they have suppers, all in large parties but all without women.”

“I never saw, or read, of any country where religion had so strong a hold upon the women, or a slighter hold upon the men.”

Other Memorable Quotes:

“The best sermon, however, that I listened to, was in a Methodist church, from the mouth of a Piquot Indian … He gave a picture frightfully eloquent of the decay of his people under the united influence of the avarice and intemperance of the white men.”

“The assumption of equality, however empty, is sufficient to tincture the manners of the poor with brutal insolence, and subjects the rich to paltry expediency of sanctioning the falsehood, however deep their conviction that it is such.”

“The same man who beards his wealthier and more educated neighbour with the bullying boast, ‘I’m as good as you,’ turns to his slave, and knocks him down … There is a glaring falsehood on the very surface of a such a man’s principles that is revolting … the kind of coarse, not to say brutal, authority which is exercised, furnishes the most disgusting moral spectacle I ever witnessed.”

“One has but to look at the wife of an American cottager, and ask her age, to be convinced that the life she leads is one of hardship, privation, and labour. It is rare to see a woman in this station who has reached the age of thirty, without losing every trace of youth and beauty.”

“One of the most remarkable traits in the national character of the Americans; namely, their exquisite sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said or written concerning them.”

“Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation.”

“Let us make a government that shall suit us all: let it be rude, and rough, and noisy; let it not affect either dignity, glory, or splendour.”

“I speak solely of the very singular effect of seeing man after man start eagerly to his feet, to declare that the greatest injury, the basest injustice, the most obnoxious tyranny that could be practiced against the state of which he was a member, would be a vote of a few million dollars for the purpose of making their roads or canals; or for drainage; or, in short, for any purpose of improvement whatsoever.”

“If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn, persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess.”

“I must still declare that I think New York one of the finest cities I ever saw … Situated on an island, which I think it will one day cover, it rises like Venice, from the sea, and like that fairest of cities in the days of her glory, receives into its lap tribute of all the riches of the earth.”

[Owlseyes]

"The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is so remarkable, that I was constantly endeavouring to account for it."

"I very seldom during my whole stay in the country heard a sentence elegantly turned, and correctly pronounced from the lips of an American. There is always something either in the expression or the accent that jars the feelings and shocks the taste."

[Jerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frances Trollope was, as Mark Twain put it, "handsomely cursed and reviled by this nation." Yet she did no more than tell the truth as she knew it. Dame Trollope came from England in 1827 to make her fortune by opening a department store on the American frontier. She settled in the booming town of Cincinnatti, Ohio, then with a population of 20,000, where she thought a fortune could easily be made. Failing to see the real needs of the settlers she didn't yet know, she did not make that fortune and was made all but destitute by the experience. Her disparagement of America is thus suspected by many of her critics to have rooted in malice. Such motives are futile to prove, however, and it is sufficient to consider her criticism stems from her reputably refined sensibilities as and Englishwoman, one who observed with some disconcertion the comparatively unbridled ways of Americans. Whatever her prejudice, her scrutiny of life in the new world nonetheless equals that of her exceedingly more favored contemporary from France.
The reproval she elicits from Americans in part has to do with how her book, Domestic Manners of the Americans, was received in England. Released to the public in March 1832, it auspiciously concurred with debates in the British Parliament over democratic reform, when agitation for a new Reform Bill modelled on American government feverishly gripped the Whigs and the Tories. The Tories, seeking to curb democratic privileges, seized at Trollope's belittlement of American democracy, what she painted as no more than the pretense and propaganda of the economically endowed landower. The Whig supporters of the Reform Bill countered by denouncing her undemocratic cast. Ordinary Britons, meanwhile, were eating her book up for its lurid account of American life. Mrs. Trollope had found her success at last: at the age of fifty-two she became a literary sensation, thereupon setting her course on the writing of travel books and novels. The fact is, Domestic Manners outraged most contemporary American readers because they saw it as irresponsible and unfavorably disposed in its reporting. Still, newspapers all over the country quoted long sections from her book along with reviling commentaries. Today we value her vivid picture of travel and accomodations as much as her opinion on postcolonial American politics and society while keeping in mind that her experiences were not, by and large, fortunate.
What counts here, however, is the detail with which she embroiders the records of her travel. After leaving Cincinnatti, Mrs. Trollope and her party traveled by stagecoach over the Alleghenies. A harsh journey, Trollope vividly describes it in what may be one of the more surprisingly favorable passages of her entire two-year visit. Also known as the Cumberland Road, this was the greatest artery of American traffic in the first half of the nineteenth century. Commencing at Cumberland, Maryland, in 1808, it was in nine years to stretch some 130 miles across the Alleghenies to Wheeling, Virginia. In 1833 it extended to Columbus, Ohio, and twenty years later to Vandalia, Illinois. Today this National Road can be found to weave in and out of U.S. Highway 40. Then it was a sometimes perilous and turbulent ride, but always sublimely picturesque. So inspiring was it, it assuaged this lioness with charms bestowed both through nature and labor. Witness how Trollope gradually progresses from rancor to rapture, though, of course, always retaining her faculty for precision and minutia and her talent for enunciating what most people only vaguely sense.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Except for a fairly heavy handed bit of virtue signaling, I really did enjoy this cranky book. Mrs. Trollope, mother of the famous Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, lived three years in the U.S. beginning in 1827. Her book was first published in 1832. Along with her family, she came with the intention of recouping her family’s lost fortunes. The Trollope’s made their way from the mouth of the Mississippi to Ohio, where she tried to run what is sometimes seen as America’s first mall. That enterprise failed too. Following that additional disappointment we follow her on her journey to the the East Coast.

She was a very good observer of every-day things and seemed to like her travels in spite of herself. She loved nature, social events, women’s dress and even visited Niagara Falls. However, that is not why people read this book. It was a huge best seller in its day, both in England and America and caused an enormous fuss in the United States. From some current GR reviews I’d say she still has the power to rile people up.

In general she seems fair to me. Two things come up again and again. The serious topic is slavery. Who can blame her for her antipathy to a terrible system. She does fail to mention how the institution got here in the first place. It is true that England abolished its slave trade some 20 years before she came to the United States. But how did the slaves end up here to begin with? Approximately 12 1/2 million Africans were purchased by the English and other European countries and brought to the Americas by force. Most ended up in the Caribbean but about 388,000 people were sold into North America. Thinking about that, I think her virtue seems a little hollow.

On a lighter note, everyone knows what Mrs. T. thought about spitting. Evidently it was all pervasive here, even on carpets. That’s just disgusting , duh! Sometimes she gets a little ridiculous. On the way to Ohio she notes that the men would be handsome if so many didn’t have red hair. Not a fan of the Scots-Irish I’d say.

I found the book readable and fun. Recommended to anyone who likes early 19th century travel and the spirited comments of an observant woman.

[P J · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are times when Frances Trollope seems just too prissy – offended by the easy (over)familiarity of her rough American neighbours. ‘Mohawk, as our little village was called, gave us an excellent opportunity of comparing the peasants of the United States with those of England’ – we are not now accustomed to considering Americans of any age as ‘peasants’. One can imagine the Americans that she met considering her stand-offish and typical of the English from which they had sundered over half a century before this book was written. It certainly caused great offence to Americans when it was published in 1832. As it reinforced British prejudices however, it was a great success, and rescued the family fortunes, sorely reduced by her irresponsible husband.
There is something profoundly depressing about her description of a ‘camp-meeting’; a large gathering of ranting Revivalists. This certainly reinforces the prejudices of us Europeans against the American predilection for religious lunacy, yes, it is this old. –
For one of the preachers ‘the admiration of the crowd was evinced by almost constant cries of “Amen! Amen!”, “Jesus! Jesus!”, “Glory! Glory!” and the like.’
and
‘But how am I to describe the sounds that proceeded from this strange mass of human beings? I know no words which can convey an idea of it. Hysterical sobbings, convulsive groans, shrieks and screams the most appalling, burst forth on all sides. I felt sick with horror.’ We still do Frances.
She liked Washington rather more than most places, and was impressed by the provision of a Ladies Gallery in Congress – ‘I must acknowledge the superior gallantry of the Americans’: in England women were ‘rigorously excluded from every part of the House of Commons’.
This book is a joy; full of surprises and close observation, even if sometimes the prejudice is just a little too obvious. One is tempted towards her contempt of a society which so volubly espoused equality while adhering to slavery. This is unfair, but her waspish footnote ‘flogging Negroes is not considered a pastime’ is delightful.
There is much, much more in ‘Domestic Manners of the Americans’ than just criticism. I wish I’d read it years ago.

[Maritza · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was wonderful, objective, eye-opener, genuine. A must-read with no doubt. A mix of slice-of-life observations, at times this feels like reading an essay, a very rich read. For some reason, maybe this is just me, but Mrs. Trollope's writing just reminded me of Charlotte Brontë. She was the mother of Anthony Trollope and I assume he had this very insightful and objective, still full of sentiment and sense of justice influence, from his mother, very likely influencing his writing career. Mrs. Trollope travels to the United States in 1827, starting in the south, traveling on the Mississippi, providing detailed descriptions and sentiment on everything she saw, from nature to houses, families, and costumes of those they were encountering on their way. She also travels north and provides such interesting views on society, food, manners. Her descriptions on Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York describe the character of the growing nation she was getting acquainted to. She does all this in direct comparison to the UK. She also provides unbelievably accurate descriptions of the different religious manifestations and which I was not expecting. So so interesting. Mrs. Trollope clearly expresses how she prefers the UK, however, she does that in a very objective and kind way. I wish more people were talking about these travels and experience. By the way, the description she makes on her unforgettable and wonder on the visit to NIAGARA FALLS was beautiful, loving, so much worth-sharing, specially since she did it in such different times in which probably it was easier to be amazed and to truly value such natural wonders.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I never beheld a scene so utterly desolate as this entrance of the Mississippi. Had Dante seen it, he might have drawn images of another Bolgia from its horrors. One only object rears itself above the eddying waters; this is the mast of a vessel long since wrecked in attempting to cross the bar, and it still stands, a dismal witness of the destruction that has been, and a boding prophet of that which is to come."

Domestic Manners of the Americans is a wonderful travel book, that samples the mood of the country in the late 1820s. That being not many years after the last war with England, it's no surprise she often found herself buffeted by anti-English sentiments. A witty and acidic writer, in the most British sense, this no doubt explains much of her scathing criticism. Parts of the book come across as an "Américains pour rire".

It caused great controversy at the time of publication, and many Americans called for it to be banned. But the criticisms become overly familiar through repetition: the art, manners, morals and philosophy of the country are all exposed to repeated thrashings.

*Equality. The idea that all men are born equal is to her the root of America's problems, both in terms of its hypocrisy and its deleterious effect on manners.

*Slavery. Although she observes many free Americans, especially the Irish, live much more severe lives.

*Secularism. The lack of a state religion and the resulting religious extremism (she links the two).

*The separation of men and women in spite of "equality for all".

*The inherent belief of Americans in the superiority of everything American, even the way they speak English (the horror!)

*The spitting, cigar smoking and whiskey drinking - the general bad manners even among the wealthy.

*Materialism - the obsession with money.

Despite the criticism there is a lot she admires:

The physical beauty of the country and cities, the architecture, the craftsmanship, the industry, the energy, determination, the enterprise, the unrealised talents of the country's many great artists. She believes America could be truly great - exceeding others in many regards - if only it would cast aside this ludicrous idea that all are born equal.

She is also critical of herself, repeatedly pointing out her failure to adequately describe what she is seeing, or understand what is happening. But despite her repeated claims to be incapable of describing sufficiently the magnificence she sees around her, her writing often slips into such sublime poetry as to render one breathless.

"I doubt if ever the pencil of Turner could do it justice, bright and glorious as it rose upon us. We seemed to enter the harbour of New York upon waves of liquid gold, and as we darted past the green isles which rise from its bosom, like guardian centinels of the fair city, the setting sun stretched his horizontal beams farther and farther at each moment, as if to point out to us some new glory in the landscape."

In fact if you edited out the repeated criticisms, the balance of the book might be largely positive in favour of the country.

Yet in her concluding words she takes a stance that is willfully hostile, with the kind of broad generalizations she avoids throughout the book. It's almost as if it is intended to provoke a reaction, to stir the blood of patriotic Americans, prick them and make their anger rise.

Taken in the context of her financial state, and her expressed knowledge that previous critical books on America had produced outrage but also tremendous sales, one has to wonder if statements like the one below were more marketing than faithful commentary.

"the population generally, as seen in town and country, among the rich and the poor, in the slave states, and the free states. I do not like them. I do not like their principles, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions."

A book of great writing, if in need of some judicious editing, the Domestic Manners of the Americans is a must read for those on both sides of the pond. Hopefully Americans today, in the knowledge that they were right all along about this crazy notion of democracy, might be able to laugh at the observations with the kind of self-effacement Trollope felt was lacking during her visit.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frances Trollope (mother of the novelist Anthony) ventures from England to Cincinnati in 1829 and spends a few years trying to make her fortune as the proprietor of an emporium (unsuccessful), along the way describing the domestic manners of the Americans.

They’re none too good. Lots of spitting. Prudish separation of the sexes, and no sophisticated conversation anywhere. Hogs in the streets. Impossible to keep a reliable servant. And, of course, there’s the problem of slavery: “But it is impossible for any mind of common honesty not to be revolted by the contradictions of their principles and practice. They inveigh against the governments of Europe, because, as they say, they favour the powerful and oppress the weak. You may hear this declaimed upon in Congress, roared out in taverns, discussed in every drawing room, satirized upon the stage, nay, even anathematized from the pulpit: listen to it, and then look at them at home; you will see them with one hand hoisting the cap of liberty, and with the other flogging their slaves.”

Certain aspects of American manners seem not to have changed in 180 years. Our special blend of provincialism and arrogance was alive and well in 1830:
“One of my friends startled me one day by saying in an affectionate, but rather compassionate tone, “How will you bear to go back to England to live, and to bring up your children in a country where you know you are considered as no better than dirt in the streets?
I begged she would explain.
Why, you know I would not affront you for any thing, but the fact is, we Americans know rather more than you think for, and certainly if I was in England I should not think of associating with anything but lords. I have always been among the first here, and if I travelled I should like to do the same. I don’t mean, I’m sure, that I would not come to see you, but you know you are not lords, and therefore I know very well how you are treated in your own country.”

She’s particularly sharp on the subject of American religion. She rejects the notion that the lack of a state religion is a great social good, as Americans insisted. She observes hundreds of religious factions, and “each congregation invests itself with some queer variety of external observance that has the melancholy effect of exposing all religious ceremonies to contempt.” She concludes, “My residence in this country has shewn me that a religious tyranny may be exerted very effectually without the aid of the government...” You said it, sister.

Needless to say, Americans of the period did not like Trollope’s book – though Mark Twain himself gave her credit for capturing American manners accurately. “She did not gild us, and neither did she whitewash us.”

[Alessandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cheerfully impertinent book is a travel diary of Frances Trollope, mother of the novelist Anthony Trollope, during her travels in the United States in the late 1820s. While tart and condescending, it is also an interesting document about the early republic, filled with descriptions of towns, customs, manners, and politics.

Mrs. Trollope had no love for America and its rough, democratic citizens, although she made some shrewd observations. She was repulsed by the institution of slavery, and her story of comforting an ill young slave to the disgust of a little white Virginian girl of the same age rings true.

On the whole her disdain for Americans was that they were not English, nor seemed to wish to be. Mrs. Trollope gave her highest praise to the Canadian children who came to the shore when she travelled by boat up the Saint Lawrence River to give deep bows and curtsies, something she considered far more proper than American handshakes.

"Domestic Manners of the Americans" is a sarcastic, snarky, rather funny book full of wit and intelligence about the early years of the United States.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the few, old travel books you always hear of, so when I saw it on the shelf, I bought it. One can see why it upset the Americans of the 1840's. The references to slavery would sure enrage one half the country and the the final chapter would take care of the rest. Excepting, maybe, some New Yorkers. Of course, her views are from one used to England's settled villages and towns and stratified social order and one religion. (Compare her views on established religion with DeTocqueville's observations from the same time frame.)
Her love of America's nature is reflective of the romantic movement, but it allowed her to have some favorable experiences during her stay.

Strange how some books last and others of the same type disappears. She devoted an entire chapter to defending Capt. Basil Halls' book, but who refers to that now?

[KV Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was awfully fun to read. The whole idea of throwing a proper English lady into the western frontier of America in the 1820s is bound to produce something hilarious-- and this delivers. Clever, incisive, observant, sometimes ill-informed, but often prophetic. It doesn't really matter though, because the way she says things is brilliant.

I can see why it was so popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Most of her complaints, such as they are, would probably make an American of that era-- maybe any era-- feel proud, and her own class of Englishman roar with laughter. Ha!

[Krisette Spangler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why this book didn't meet with very favorable reviews in America. Mrs. Trollope spent three years visiting our country, and while she loved the beauty of our nation; she was not impressed with the people and their manners. Some of her criticism is fair, and some of it comes from pure snobbery. However, the descriptions of the newly settled Ohio and surrounding areas are beautiful, and Mrs. Trollope is a great writer.

[Steve]

Ms. Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans is best described with one word: appalling. To her mind, what this country lacked was some proper British civility and but for a brief visit to Canada she was sorely and repeatedly disappointed. She spent 3 ½ years in the United States with her children, from 1828 into 1831, arriving at the mouth of the Mississippi River. She eventually landed in Cincinnati by steamboat, remaining there for some time, leaving with nothing good to say for that Queen City. She passed through Wheeling then on to the coast, travelling from Washington, DC up to New York City, then to the upstate to take in Niagara Falls, which awed her. She returned to New York City to catch a return ship to England.

Along the way, Ms. Trollope commented on curious religious practices, especially revivals, most noticeable in the western states. “I never saw, or read, of any country where religion had so strong a hold upon the women, or a slighter hold upon the men.” Spitting seemed rampant, which vexed her greatly, as did a universal fondness for money, flimsy constructions, and a general lack of education. She did note that in the western regions, cash was as hard to find as the law, with much trade conducted through barter. She did manage to find some kind words for the cities of Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, despite her profoundly negative views throughout this book.

With respect to our inhumane history of social repression, she was particularly critical of the treatment of Irish immigrants and Indians, though she reserved her harshest words for the effects of slavery.

It was not till I had leisure for more minute observation that I felt aware of the influence of slavery upon the owners of slaves; when I did, I confess I could not but think that the citizens of the United States had contrived, by their political alchymy, to extract all that was most noxious both in democracy and in slavery, and had poured the strange mixture through every vein of the moral organization of their country.

She visited a progressive community called Nashoba in Tennessee, an attempt to emancipate slaves and provide them with education. She ran from that place as quickly as she arrived, quite distraught with what she witnessed, a lack of organization and a harsh climate. Given what she observed in her travels, it’s a wonder this country evolved into the global prominence it now enjoys, perhaps more a statement on America’s great endowed natural bounty, along with two massive protective oceans, than any exceptional enlightenment inherent to its citizens.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It really gave me an insight into the roots of our culture. And make no mistake: this woman is spot-on. And she's still spot-on.

The problem and the thing that makes it a one of a kind gem is that it's told by an Englishwoman. The conceit that makes Trollope ridiculous is the idea that after leaving England, we would automatically want to be just like them. We'd travel in ships for months, fight the natives, make roads, FIGHT THEM OFF etc, and set up another England. And we would have it all neatly wrapped up in 200 years so "our grandmother the British" could feel right at home.

It's just silly. Europe took thousands of years to get where it was in the mid nineteenth century.

What makes this book an important part of history is the light it shines on both sides simultaneously. We are, well, ourselves. And she represents everything that was wrong with the Brits at the time-mainly the conceit of thinking theirs was the only way. At the time the Brits were vigorously making sure that "the sun never sets on the British Empire".

Did she not know that they sold us the slaves? The irony! Read this and know how blind one can be to one's own country.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book was great. I loved reading about what life was like for a mom and her kids coming to America in the 1820. The descriptions of everything, the roads, the cooking, the churches, the homes, were great. I couldn't get enough of the book. I was being shown a world I had never imagined.

The second half? Not so good.

When she decides to leave her home in Ohio and to move back to England, the book becomes bland, unengaging.

It's like she's given up on giving us a taste of what the country was like back then. She becomes a whiny tourist rather than a a whiny settler. It's a world of difference.

Read the first half and then throw away the book.

[Sam Schulman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better than I thought it would be from the many references to it, yet quite boring from page to page - perhaps one would have suggested to Mrs. Trollope (Anthony's mother)had one been alive then that she not spend a f u l l two years of her visit in Cincinatti. Still, full of good stuff, including a report that even in the sticks, it was well known that Jefferson seduced his slaves, smiled indulgently when his offspring ran away, and was in general the kind of shit that he appears to be in Henry Adams' great History of the Jefferson and Madison Administrations.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was greatly entertained in reading Fanny Trollope’s impressions and opinions of America in this 1820s travel memoir.

[James Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Domestic Manners of the Americans is an 1832 travel book by Frances Trollope, which follows her travels through America and her residence in Cincinnati, at the time still a frontier town. I encountered this book as part of a freshman English composition class at the University of Wisconsin. It was among several works by authors from Europe that we read including De Tocqueville and Martineau.
The book created a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, as Frances Trollope had a caustic view of the Americans and found America strongly lacking in manners and learning. She was appalled by America's egalitarian middle-class and by the influence of evangelicalism that was emerging during the Second Great Awakening. Trollope was also disgusted by slavery, of which she saw relatively little as she stayed in the South only briefly, and by the popularity of tobacco chewing. Frances Trollope traveled to America together with her son Henry, "having been partly instigated by the social and communistic ideas of a lady whom I well remember, a certain Miss Wright, who was, I think, the first of the American female lecturers". (Anthony Trollope.- An Autobiography) She briefly stayed at the Nashoba Commune, a Utopian settlement for ex-slaves which Wright had set up in Tennessee, where she was dismayed by the primitive conditions. The view of this outsider was an illuminating literary experience.

[Kyle Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fanny Trollope has an amazing, albeit arch and very British, way of describing Americans she meets during her time in the US...which boils down to -- the women are all religious fanatics and the men spit way too much. Her sentences go on far too long, her use of commas is prodigious, and her view of England as being far superior to America in every way is typical. But man...can she get mean and funny in her commentaries. And her description of Cincinnati, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC, New Orleans, and the (less than) mighty Mississippi (in her view) are elegant put downs.

But what's best about this book? How it shows American men and women have not evolved one bit in the last 180 years. Even in 1829, businessmen complained about too much governmental interference, even as they made use of government funded projects like the Erie Canal. People were constantly taken in by "traveling preachers" who breathed hell-fire and damnation to congregations filled with young women...and who left behind a number of fatherless children.

It's a chore to read, at times. Mrs. Trollope writes in a very pre-Victorian style where you have to pay attention to each word and every comma, but it's worth reading if only to find out what people really thought of Thomas Jefferson at the time of his death, and Andrew Jackson as he was being elected. They were not nice things...but on-so-typically American.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

O, Fanny Trollope. By the end of this book I was tempted to agree with the nineteenth-century American reviewers who suggested your name was particularly fitting to your acid-tongued personality. Fanny Trollope came to America to join a utopian community, which worked out about as well as utopian communities generally do. She took her revenge by writing a pretty long treatise detailing everything wrong with nineteenth-century America. It's arrogant, incredibly Victorian, and strangely addicting. It's also a conservative manifesto published (deliberately) as one of the reform bills was being debated. Trollope's point, in the end, is that Brits are far better off with their aristocracy and established church and should stay away from republicanism at all costs. Some lovely moments include her description of the herds of pigs which act as garbage patrol in the streets of Cincinnati, as well as this description of 4th of July celebrations: "it was indeed a glorious sight to behold a jubilee as heartfelt as this; and had they not the bad taste and bad feeling to utter an annual oration, with unvarying abuse of the mother country, to say nothing of the warlike manifesto called the Declaration of Independence, our gracious king himself might look upon the scene and say that is was good" (69).

[Reenie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is rather good fun for anyone who's been to America and might happen to be, as my boyfriend would put it 'a little wary of the natives'. (Being American, he can get away with saying things in ways that would get those of us not blessed to originate from this country accusations of Trollopising).

Anyway, I most definitely enjoyed it, and can't help but think that Fanny Trollope would have been very amusing company. I like her style a lot, and I only wish there'd been even more of the little anecdotes of cultural misunderstandings than there already are in this book, because they were hilarious. However much you might agree or disagree with her, she has a lovely dry way of relating everything. (Even if she does think the US would be greatly improved if everything else was more like NYC... actually, I'm not arguing with that. Some things really haven't changed, even when they have entirely)

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Might be more appropriate to say that I liked parts of it. Trollope's descriptions of the natural settings she and her family traveled through are lovely and her frustration with the treatment of Native Americans, African Americans and women resonate with the modern reader. On the other hand, most other discussion is along the lines of the oft-repeated belief that England is the best country in the world for X, Y and Z. While for theaters and cultural life, this certainly would have been true at the time. But for a number of other things ranging from her indignation about the lack of good servants and the treatment of the poor, it is ethnocentrism run amuck. It did make want to read more about Frances Wright though, so time well spent.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fanny Trollope, mother of the Victorian novelist, Anthony Trollope, came to America in 1827. She lived for several years in Cincinnati, which was then the hog capital of the nation. She loved America, but loathed Americans. She found them boorish and ignorant. They were ridiculously proud of their form of government and stubbornly insisted, against evidence quite obvious to Mrs. Trollope, that all men were created equal. Mrs. Trollope was quick to point out that this vaunted equality was extended to neither Native Americans nor slaves. Mrs. Trollope was glad to return to civilization (Europe) in 1832, and the Americans were doubtless delighted to see her go.

[Holli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fanny Trollope came to America in the 1820s and what she found she did not like. She thought many parts of the country were beautiful, but strongly disliked the people. All the spitting, the segregated sexes, the slavery, etc. It was funny to read how “American” people were after just 60 years of being a new country – no accents, loud and fast talking and eating, poor manners, etc. I loved this book! Her description of the Alleghenies Mountains and Niagara Falls were spot on and very inspiring.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only gave this book three stars because I don't think it deserves more, but what a fun read. Mrs. Trollope was not a wise woman, and I doubt she was a likeable one, but her misadventures traveling across the United States, unwittingly insulting its hospitable and long-suffering people, have a certain charm. Especially fun to read as a fan of her son Anthony's books, and having recently enjoyed "Life on the Mississippi."

[Angie Engles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this even more than I thought I would after picking it for its historical value and because the writer was the mother of one of my favorite novelists of all time, Anthony Trollope. I can only imagine what Americans at the time must have thought of this funny book that often maligns their culture and habits! :) I discovered this for free in the Kindle store, where other quirky reads of the nineteenth century can also be acquired without any charge as well.