The Domestic Manners of Americans

If you haven't read Fanny Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans by all means do so. Fanny arrived in Cincinnati by riverboat in 1829 and stayed three years creating the city's first department store and keeping a journal. She brought three children, a starving artist, and two servants with her and was astonished when the servants preferred to stay in Ohio rather than return to London. The book was a best seller at home and here. Americans wanted to find out for themselves the extent of her waspish criticisms of their crude ways, and of course the English wanted confirmation that America was indeed that rough and rude country across the pond.

What's most important about the book are descriptions of Ohio when it was basically frontier country--all forests and streams, her means of travel (before the railroad), Washington, D.C., slavery, and the beautiful Niagara Falls--pristine and untouched by commerce (certainly no casinos). She raved about them. The thing she hated most about American society was that common, ordinary people were in charge. That was not the case in England where aristocracy ruled and everyone knew and stayed in their pre-ordained place.

From Amazon reviews
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> Fanny spent most of her time in the U.S. in Cincinnati and in her book is very hard on the city and its inhabitants. She especially objected to the pigs' role as garbage collectors. (In those days, pigs roamed the streets freely, like sheep grazing.) Fanny felt most of the people she encountered were loud, dirty, vulgar, and fanatically patriotic. It is her vivid descriptions of the physical conditions and the people that give this book its historical and entertainment value.
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> While she was living in Cinci, she opened a retail emporium and filled it with rather shoddy merchandise sent from England by her husband. She also attempted to bring culture to the inhabitants. Not surprisingly, both ventures failed.
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