The Discovery of America

A journal of my road trip to the formative decades of American history.

I recently finished a manuscript for a book about the first six decades of the 19th century. The book argues that as that century began, the United States remained unscripted — an experiment, a speculation. Then, with startling speed, through unlikely characters and scenes, the new nation improvised a politics, economy, and culture that would define the United States for centuries to come.

While I was editing the book, my wife and I set out to see how Americans today remember that formative era. Below, you’ll find my dispatches about the ways in which stories from that time are — and are not — being told in the places where they took place. New installments in the series are published here every other week.

Part 1: History on the Road
After decades of reading, writing, and teaching about the American past, I’m setting out to see how that past is remembered in the places where it happened.

Part 2: Gone to Carolina
In our first lengthy journey of the trip, we head south in search of stories from two centuries ago. Traces are there, but larger meanings remain elusive.

Part 3: Native Trails
A visit to our childhood stomping grounds reveals few traces of the exploitation and dispossession that took place there generations earlier.

Part 4: High Domes and Bottomless Pits
On the trip north from TN to OH, we visit the homes of two U.S. presidents, the birthplace of another, and a natural wonder that once drew visitors from far and wide.

Part 5: Our Flag Was Still There
How is the first half of the 19th century depicted in and around the nation’s capital? We hit the road to find out.

Part 6: Tidying Up the Past
A history tour at Harper’s Ferry suggests that “commemoration” and “desecration” might be two sides of the same coin.

Part 7: Time for a Revolution
The economic transformations wrought by industrial capitalism in the 1820s and 30s look different when viewed up close.

Part 8: Rainbows and Disappointments
There is a long and storied tradition of feeling underwhelmed by the natural spectacle of Niagara Falls. Still, the visitors keep coming.

Part 9: No Better Soil
In the first half of the 19th century, upstate New York was a hotbed of movements for reform. How visible is that history today?