Abstract
“Americans, unshackle your minds and act like independent beings,” Noah Webster urged his countrymen in 1788. “You have been children long enough, subject to the control and subservient to the interest of a haughty parent. You have now an interest of your own to augment and defend: you have an empire to raise and support by your exertions and a national character to establish and extend by your wisdom and virtues.” To accomplish all of this, he argued, “Americans must believe and act from the belief that it is dishonorable to waste life in mimicking the follies of other nations and basking in the sunshine of foreign glory.” Americans must create a national culture of their own.1
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© 2001 Bedford/St. Martin’s
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Kornfeld, E. (2001). Introduction. In: Creating an American Culture, 1775–1800. The Bedford Series in History and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-03834-0_1
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