"In this book a prominent art historian offers a new approach to the study of American intellectual history. By analyzing masterworks of literature as well as art and architecture within their cultural context, he vividly demonstrates how America expressed itself at various crucial stages in the nineteenth century as it evolved into a nation."--Jacket. "John Wilmerding focuses on three turning points - around 1800, when America began to find its identity as a republic; 1850, a self-confident period of prosperity and growth; and 1900, a time of anxiety over profound changes in the psychological as well as the physical dimension. The author provides stimulating discussions of the great works of these three periods - from Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and Charles Willson Peale's Staircase Portrait to Thoreau's Walden and George Caleb Bingham's Fur Traders Descending the Missouri to The Education of Henry Adams and the late paintings of Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer - finding common threads and complementary expressions in the images that writers and visual artists alike drew upon to convey the mood and vision of each distinctive era."--Jacket.