A New Albion in New America: British Periodicals and Morris Birkbeck`s English Prairie, 1818-1824

Abstract

The \"English Prairie\" settlements in Edwards County, Illinois attracted an inordinate amount of commentary in the post-Napoleonic War period, providing a window into British intellectual life of the period. Morris Birkbeck, the more famous of the English Prairie`s two founders, came to personify America for British readers. Commentators ranged widely in their opinions of the English Prairie, speaking in broad terms of either superior aspects of western American society and polity or else making the new state of Illinois a foil to illustrate the ills of democracy and religious disestablishment. Three of the most prominent British reviews of the time - the Edinburgh Review, Quarterly Review, and Westminster Review - were vital participants in this debate that was really about the future of Great Britain. The periodicals created images of America suited to their understanding of the situation, as one small part of sparsely populated Illinois became a vicarious arena for competing concepts of politics and religion.