CHAPTER V

THE LITERARY REPUBLIC

1854–1855

From October 1854 to the end of 1855, Olmsted was engaged in two quite different undertakings. One was his literary career, which at first took the form of writing A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States. He also continued to write letters to the New-York Daily Times on topics of concern to him; the letter published here addresses the problem of training and disciplining seamen. In April 1855 his literary activity expanded as he left Staten Island for Manhattan to become a partner in the publishing firm of Dix, Edwards & Company and managing editor of Putnam’s Monthly Magazine. His letters to his father, his partner Arthur T. Edwards, and his assisting editor Parke Godwin tell of his work as a publisher. They give his views on such questions as payment to English publishers for the right to reprint their works in America and the position the Monthly should take on current political issues. The letter to his half-sister Bertha describes his approach to travel and travel-writing, and contains one of his earliest statements of the concept of “unconscious influence,” which was to play so important a role in his later views on character formation and the nature of the creative process.

In this period, Olmsted also became increasingly active in the free-soil movement. His letters to Edward Everett Hale in this chapter describe his earliest association with the New England Emigrant Aid Company, while his letters to James B. Abbott chronicle his purchase of the mountain howitzer that he sent to Kansas in October 1855 for the defense of free-state settlers.