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Global Comparisons

These “image essays” gather together striking images on the same theme from across the books in the exhibit.

Rightly or wrongly, we have come to think of our modern world as interconnected on a global scale. American authors in the first half of the nineteenth century were much more preoccupied with comparison than connection. Assiduously comparing every domain of human life, they constructed a hierarchy of continents, races, nations, and peoples which comfortingly situated white Anglo-Americans at or right beside the very top of that global hierarchy.

Hover over any image to see source information; right click on any image to see a larger version; look under Research Resources for guides to all images in the digital exhibit.