Searched MOA for "Indianapolis", in books before 1861.
Indianapolis shows up 7491 times in 851 works

The city was a reference point (latitude and longitude tables) a traveler's layover (several narratives, esp. of western journeys) an example of growth and progress, the poet "Mrs Bolton", a railroad network center, statehood, religious missionaries (autobiography of Peter Cartwright), J.H. Green's Reformed Gambler, lists of delegates to congress or political conventions, underground rr and church abolition, christian pamphlets,

There are also several library book catalogs (Boston Mercantile Library, and the Atheneam, for ex.) listing books published in Indianapolis, such as Beecher's Lectures to Young Men.

[City as pawn in larger arguments about the nature of American progress?)


Francis Bowen's The principles of political economy applied to the condition, the resources, and the institutions of the American people (1859), has a discussion of population concentration that is very interesting.

Francis Wayland uses Indianapolis as an example of commercial and transportation progress:
Author: Wayland, Francis, 1796-1865.
Title: The education demanded by the people of the U. States. A discourse delivered at Union College, Schenectady, July 25, 1854, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the presidency of Eliphalet Nott ... By Francis Wayland ...
Publication date: 1855.


MOA has texts of OH Smiths Early Indiana Trials and Sketches, and Holloway's 1870 History of Indianapolis.

**** Searched for Natchez
produced 795 hits in 330 works.


Also focus of travel literature, **frequently** mentioned in Debow's review discussion of agriculture and manufactring, wine-making, cotton, rr to New Orleans,

Site of an execution of a murderer (story in Southern literary messenger; devoted to every department of literature and the fine arts. / Volume 1, Issue 4, Dec 1834, pp.141-144)

Picturesque scenery (Moonlight and magnolias?) "The Exile: The Ladies' repository: a monthly periodical, devoted to literature, arts, and religion. / Volume 6, Issue 5, May 1846, pp.146-149

Debow's has Solon Robinson on Negro Slavery






posted by Lloyd at 7:20 PM