Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
Chapter 6, Lesson 3, How Others Saw Us (pp. 179-183)
I. The American Defined
B. Crèvecoeur admired most, but not all, of American society.
C. Crèvecoeur defined the American as a "new man" with new ideas and ways
of doing things.
II. Criticism of America
B. Martineau felt that Americans respected individualism but were really conformists.
C. Martineau was especially critical of slavery and of Americans' acceptance of it.
III. Tocqueville's America
B. Tocqueville was also disturbed by slavery, but outside of slavery, he was
impressed by a lack of class distinctions and greater respect for women in American society.
Lesson at a Glance Outline
A. Like the English woman, Frances Trollope, the Frenchman Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crèvecoeur came
to the U.S. and wrote about its people.
A. Harriet Martineau, another foreign observer, found Americans too talkative,
and too concerned with the opinions of others.
A. Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, traveled through the U.S. and wrote about
it in Democracy in America: 1835-39.
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