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Antebellum American Culture Analysis

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Antebellum American Culture Analysis
Daniel Rowland is associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky and has published numerous articles on art, architecture, and political culture. Dr. James Klotter is a professor of History at Georgetown College and the State Historian of Kentucky. He is the author or coauthor of many books on Kentucky and Appalachian History. Lexington was a cultural center of Kentucky and the essays in the book show its significance in antebellum America. This collection shows the influential years of Kentucky cultural development and particularly sets out to understand the development of Lexington and its cultural accomplishments.
Many of the essays give an optimistic account of the golden age of culture in Kentucky, with many being extremely animated. Three essays focus on the sophisticated artistic scene of Lexington. While many would believe that regional artists, folk art, or frontier lifestyle to have dominated culture in Kentucky in the antebellum period, but Lexington was a classy town with nationally known figures. Architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe made
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American settlement of Kentucky came at a price and not without compromise. Native-Americans were driven west after years of conquest and conflict. Furthermore, the desire to imitate the culture, civility and social scene of eastern cities went hand-in-hand with the willingness to allow slavery, which many in eastern cities saw as vile, in order to achieve their desired culture. Economic disparity and landlessness, the oppression of females, and violence shaped the Kentucky story. The “darker hues” (p. 22) are brought to light by coeditor James Klotter and elaborated upon in the essays of numerous others. Contributor Davis Bowman identifies the likeness between this “Athens of the West” and its classical equivalent by concentrating on the two cities’ reliance on

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