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  • Frenchifying the Frontier:Transnational Federalism in the Early West
  • Keri Holt (bio)

The antebellum West was a hotbed of literary activism. Western presses published more than one hundred local newspapers and literary magazines from the late 1820s through the 1850s. Cities such as Vidalia, Lexington, Marietta, New Orleans, and Cincinnati were thriving literary centers, boasting numerous bookshops, libraries, theaters, and literary societies, including the Semi-Colon and Buckeye clubs of Cincinnati, where members exhibited their western pride by discussing the work of local authors while drinking beverages from buckeye bowls.1 The "West" at this time was located much closer east and south than the West we know today. It encompassed, roughly, the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Mississippi Valley region of present-day Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama. Anxious to assert a regional identity and sense of solidarity within the rapidly expanding nation, residents of this region pushed for the development of distinctly western literary culture, capable of representing, as one periodical editor put it, "the slight but perceptible shades of difference, and the visible particularities of national character, which our peculiar origin, physical circumstances, and moral condition have imposed upon us."2

In celebrating these local "particularities," however, western advocates had to walk a fine line between asserting their regional distinctiveness and affirming their commitment to the nation. To avoid charges of sectionalism, western writers and editors often drew on the language of federalism to justify their regional focus, arguing that the development of a strong western community was a complement to national unity, rather than a threat to it. "He who would attempt to portray the American character, must draw, not a single portrait, but a family piece containing several heads," wrote James Hall, the [End Page 1] prominent Cincinnati writer. "In each would be discovered some strong lines common to all . . . but each would have a shade or cast of expression peculiar unto itself."3

How, then, did writers represent the West as part of this federal American family? What tactics did they use to portray the West's "peculiar shades," while also showing its "lines common to all"? Hall's work can help answer these questions. Originally from Philadelphia, he began his literary career writing for Joseph Dennie's well-known literary magazine, The Port-Folio, where he published alongside writers such as Charles Brockden Brown and Washington Irving. Following the successful publication of his travel narrative, Letters from the West (1822), Hall settled permanently in the Ohio Valley, where he quickly became one of the West's leading literary voices. Hall edited and published the first western literary annual, the Western Souvenir, in 1829. He also edited two of the West's most successful literary magazines, the Illinois Monthly Magazine and the Western Monthly Review. He regularly published and promoted western writers in his periodicals and was among the most vocal and influential advocates for western literature. In addition, he continued to publish a great deal of his own short fiction, which appeared in both western and eastern periodicals—including the Cincinnati Mirror, the New-York Mirror, and the Boston-based Literary Bouquet. The collected editions of his short stories, Legends of the West (1832), The Soldier's Bride, and other Tales (1833), and Tales of the Border (1835)—all published by a major publishing house in Philadelphia—brought him an even larger audience. Far from existing as a marginal literary figure during his time, Hall enjoyed a national reputation during the 1830s and 1840s, second only to Washington Irving's short stories.4

Given the national popularity and critical reception of his fiction, Hall's depictions of the West had a significant influence on the public imagination. One of the most definitive features of his work was his portrayal of the West as it existed in the past, and he regularly drew on the colonial history of the Ohio and Mississippi regions to assert the West's distinctive character. The majority of his stories are set during the French colonial past, and, as we shall see, they present what might best be described as a "Frenchified" vision of the region. Rather than providing a historically credible portrait, Hall's work...

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