An American Renaissance.

The 1850s were a watershed decade for American literature. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851) are widely acknowledged as the first true masterpieces of the American novel. Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854) received similar acclaim as a classic of American nonfiction, while Walt Whitman's long poem Song of Myself, published in his Leaves of Grass (1855), is still regarded by many as the great epic celebration of American democracy. Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) profoundly influenced the nation's attitude toward slavery.

New American Art.

American artists were also coming into their own. Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt —known as luminists for their emphasis on atmosphere and light—were turning away from the Old World romanticism of their predecessors, the Hudson River School, in favor of a new realism based on a nearly scientific attention to detail.

Music and Drama.

To a...