- Young America movement
The Young America Movement was
United States political concept popular in the 1840s. Inspired by European youth movements of the 1830s (seeYoung Italy ), the U.S. group was formed as a political organization in 1845 by Edwin de Leon and George H. Evans. It advocated free trade, social reform, expansion southward into the territories, and support for republican movements abroad. It became a faction in the Democratic Party in the 1850s. Sen.Stephen A. Douglas promoted its nationalistic program in an unsuccessful effort to compromise sectional differences.Young America also had a literary side. Leading writers of the movement included
Evert Augustus Duyckinck ,Cornelius Mathews , andJohn L. O'Sullivan . [Duberman, Martin. "James Russell Lowell". Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966: 50.] Their main vehicle was the literary journal "Arcturus".Herman Melville in his book "Mardi " (1849) refers to it by naming a ship in the book "Arcturion". Observing that it was "exceedingly dull", and that its crew had a low literary level. [Delbanco, Andrew: "Melville, His World and Work". New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005: 93. ISBN 0-375-40314-0]Notes
References
*Eyal, Yonatan (2007) "The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party 1828-1861". New York: Cambridge University Press.
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