Wilderness and Wall Street: Privilege, Community, and Restraint in Literature of the New York Frontier
type: CreativeWork
description: In the American Studies tradition, the frontier has long been equated with unfettered individualism---imagined in symbolic opposition to the restraint on individual action required by community. The current study reconsiders the role of literature in promoting frontier individualism at the expense of frontier community. I argue that the early-industrial trial preference for frontier individualism masks an older commitment to community building, that the tension between community and individualism carries a strong class component, and that the dominant nineteenth-century aesthetic response to the frontier promotes the agenda of economic elitism.
abstract: In the American Studies tradition, the frontier has long been equated with unfettered individualism---imagined in symbolic opposition to the restraint on individual action required by community. The current study reconsiders the role of literature in promoting frontier individualism at the expense of frontier community. I argue that the early-industrial trial preference for frontier individualism masks an older commitment to community building, that the tension between community and individualism carries a strong class component, and that the dominant nineteenth-century aesthetic response to the frontier promotes the agenda of economic elitism.
author: D'Errico, Jon Mark
language: eng
keywords: American Studies
date published: 2015-09-25T20:15:51Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:26:16Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/81511