Society in America

The British scholar Harriet Martineau spent two years travelling throughout the United States before writing her three-volume commentary, Society in America, in 1837. Her lengthy journey began in New York in the autumn of 1834, less than sixty years after the birth of the United States, and she immersed herself in the politics, economics, civilisation and religions of the country before returning to England in the summer of 1836. Her travels took her to the nation’s capital, where she enjoyed the hospitality of the president, witnessed Supreme Court proceedings and visited both houses of Congress. She also went to prisons, hospitals and mental institutions, literary and scientific foundations, factories, plantations and farms around the land; lived in farmhouses and log cabins; and travelled by horse, stagecoach and steamboat. This third volume examines American social organisation and religious institutions, with chapters on women, children, marriage, and religious beliefs and practices.