104 Environment and Identity in an Age of Revolutions

1800–1860

The profound political, economic, and social transformations we associate with the period from the early republic to the Civil War took place within a physical context shaped by North America’s environment, geography, and climate. America was largely an agricultural nation, and its climate and geography drove economic and political decisions and forged distinctive regional identities. The rocky soil and short growing season of the Northeast, for example, discouraged the adoption of the plantation system, which took root instead on the arable soils of the more temperate southern states.

The physical environment and conditions Americans faced evoked different responses manifested in the ways they chose to interpret, preserve, manage, or exploit the natural world. Most often, nature presented challenges to overcome, as was the case for farmers who had to clear the land of trees before sowing seeds or canal workers who had to dig ditches to enable waterborne commerce. Nature also provided riches in the form of agricultural bounty and deposits of minerals and precious metals, which Americans commoditized to fuel their growing economy. The landscape could also inspire with its transcendent beauty. Americans’ complex interaction with nature both constrained and shaped the lives they led and the world they created.