Presidents and Celebrities: John Tyler and Charles Dickens
In 1842, during the Presidency of John Tyler, the famed British author Charles Dickens made the first of his two visits to the United States. Dickens was not yet 30 years old when he set sail from Liverpool on the steamship Britannia on January 3rd of that year, but he was at the height of his popularity.
Dickens had been born in Portsmouth, England, into poverty. He left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory after his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, but would become most famous for many of the novels he wrote which remain classics to this day. Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humor, his satire and his keen observation of society. Most of his novels were published in monthly or weekly instalments. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept his readers in suspense. At the time of his first visit to the US, he had already written Oliver Twist (published as a monthly serial in Bentley's Miscellany from February 1837 to April 1839), Nicholas Nickleby (another monthly serial, published from April 1838 to October 1839), the Old Curiosity Shop (a weekly serial published in Master Humphrey's Clock, from April 1840 to November 1841) and Barnaby Rudge (also a weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, published from February to November 1841).
Dickens was hoping to increase his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic and with the approval of his publishers, Chapman and Hall, he wanted to see the young nation for himself. He was accompanied by his wife, Catherine, and her maid, Anne Brown. The voyage from Liverpool to Boston proved to be one of the stormiest in years and his cabin aboard the Britannia was a small one. They arrived in Boston on January 22, 1842 and Dickens was met by an adoring mob, with his arrival compared by some historians to that of the Beatles over a century later. At first Dickens reveled in the attention, but soon the never-ending demand of his time began to wear on him. He complained about itin a letter to his friend John Forster, writing: "I can do nothing that I want to do, go nowhere where I want to go, and see nothing that I want to see. If I turn into the street, I am followed by a multitude."
One of the issues on Dickens' agenda was to try to put forth the idea of international copyright. His works were often pirated in America without any compensation. Dickens tried to convince those who would listen that such an arrangement would be mutually beneficial for American authors who were pirated in Europe. His arguments were met with criticism in the press, with some newspapers accusing Dickens of being a mercenary and coming to America for the sole purpose of making money. There would be no international copyright law until 1891, over 20 years after Dickens' death.
While in Boston, Dickens visited the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind where he observed Laura Bridgman, a blind and deaf girl who was able to receive a remarkable education through the teaching of Samuel Gridley Howe, director of the school.
Dickens planned to compare the public institutions of America to those in Britain. He visited, hospitals for the insane, orphanages, and schools for blind and deaf children in almost every city he visited. He also toured factories.
In March of 1842, while in Washington he toured the White House, and met tenth US President John Tyler. Dickens hoped his tour would reveal whether American democracy was an improvement on the model of British monarchy. Dickens arrived at the capital city and spent a full week observing American politics. He made numerous visits to Congress, and met a number of congressional leaders. While waiting to meet President Tyler, Dickens sat with other men seeking an audience with the president. He was repulsed by their tobacco spitting habit, writing that they “bestowed their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages.” After this unpleasant experience, Dickens met with President Tyler in an office on March 10, and described the president as follows:
He looked somewhat worn and anxious, and well he might, being at war with everybody. But the expression of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner was remarkably unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable. I thought that, in his whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station singularly well."
At their meeting Tyler, welcoming Dickens, said that he was astonished to see so young a man. Dickens smiled and later wrote that he had thought of returning the compliment but didn't, because Tyler "looked too worn and tired to justify it."
On March 15, Dickens and Tyler met again, this time at a grand reception that also honored Washington Irving, who Tyler had just appointed as the American Ambassador to Spain. The number of people who came to see the famed author was estimated at three thousand, just in the East Room alone. Police had difficulty in controlling the crowd, and the security pocket that was usually maintained around Tyler was described as "down to almost nothing." Another attendee described the event as "a complete jam."
Dickens met another President on this tour, the former President and now Congressman John Quincy Adams. Dickens had a more favorable impression of the 6th President. He wrote, "Adams is a fine old fellow, seventy-six years old, but with most surprising vigour, memory, readiness, and pluck."
Dickens also met two of the three members of the Senate's "great triumvirate." He liked Henry Clay, describing him as "one of the most agreeable and fascinating men I ever saw. He is tall and slim, with long, limp, gray hair—a good head—refined features—a bright eye—a good voice—and a manner more frank and captivating than I ever saw in any man, at all advanced in life. I was perfectly charmed with him." He also met Daniel Webster and in his writings, he remarked on Webster's "feigning abstraction in the dreadful pressure of affairs of state; rubbing his forehead as one who was a-weary of the world."
Dickens was generally unimpressed with Washington, DC as a city. He wrote that this "city of magnificent intentions" as he referred to it, was full of "spacious avenues that begin in nothing and lead nowhere; streets mile long that only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament."
On the trip Dickens also met American literary giants Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, and Washington Irving. Poe has asked for Dickens' help in finding a British publisher, something Dickens later tried unsuccessfully to do for Poe. When he failed in his attempts, he reported that his relationship with Poe "cooled."
Dickens wanted to see the South and observe slavery first hand. He had planned to go to Charleston, but because of the heat and the length of the trip he settled for Richmond, Virginia. He intensely disliked what he saw in Richmond, both by the condition of the slaves themselves and by the whites' attitudes towards slavery. In American Notes, a book written after he returned to England describing his American visit, he wrote a scathing report about the institution of slavery. He cited newspaper accounts of runaway slaves horribly disfigured by their cruel masters. From Richmond, Dickens returned to Baltimore, through Washington, and began a trek westward to St. Louis, traveling by riverboat and stagecoach. He found that he had more anonymity and personal freedom the further west he went.
Charles Dickens was generally disappointed with his American experience. He wrote, "this is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination." In American Notes, he was critical of the American press whom he blamed for the American's lack of general information. In Dickens' next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, he sends young Martin to America, using the novel as another vehicle to criticize the young republic.
American response to both books was extremely negative and angered many Americans. Dickens sought to make amends during his second visit to America in 1867-68.
Dickens had been born in Portsmouth, England, into poverty. He left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory after his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, but would become most famous for many of the novels he wrote which remain classics to this day. Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humor, his satire and his keen observation of society. Most of his novels were published in monthly or weekly instalments. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept his readers in suspense. At the time of his first visit to the US, he had already written Oliver Twist (published as a monthly serial in Bentley's Miscellany from February 1837 to April 1839), Nicholas Nickleby (another monthly serial, published from April 1838 to October 1839), the Old Curiosity Shop (a weekly serial published in Master Humphrey's Clock, from April 1840 to November 1841) and Barnaby Rudge (also a weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, published from February to November 1841).
Dickens was hoping to increase his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic and with the approval of his publishers, Chapman and Hall, he wanted to see the young nation for himself. He was accompanied by his wife, Catherine, and her maid, Anne Brown. The voyage from Liverpool to Boston proved to be one of the stormiest in years and his cabin aboard the Britannia was a small one. They arrived in Boston on January 22, 1842 and Dickens was met by an adoring mob, with his arrival compared by some historians to that of the Beatles over a century later. At first Dickens reveled in the attention, but soon the never-ending demand of his time began to wear on him. He complained about itin a letter to his friend John Forster, writing: "I can do nothing that I want to do, go nowhere where I want to go, and see nothing that I want to see. If I turn into the street, I am followed by a multitude."
One of the issues on Dickens' agenda was to try to put forth the idea of international copyright. His works were often pirated in America without any compensation. Dickens tried to convince those who would listen that such an arrangement would be mutually beneficial for American authors who were pirated in Europe. His arguments were met with criticism in the press, with some newspapers accusing Dickens of being a mercenary and coming to America for the sole purpose of making money. There would be no international copyright law until 1891, over 20 years after Dickens' death.
While in Boston, Dickens visited the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind where he observed Laura Bridgman, a blind and deaf girl who was able to receive a remarkable education through the teaching of Samuel Gridley Howe, director of the school.
Dickens planned to compare the public institutions of America to those in Britain. He visited, hospitals for the insane, orphanages, and schools for blind and deaf children in almost every city he visited. He also toured factories.
In March of 1842, while in Washington he toured the White House, and met tenth US President John Tyler. Dickens hoped his tour would reveal whether American democracy was an improvement on the model of British monarchy. Dickens arrived at the capital city and spent a full week observing American politics. He made numerous visits to Congress, and met a number of congressional leaders. While waiting to meet President Tyler, Dickens sat with other men seeking an audience with the president. He was repulsed by their tobacco spitting habit, writing that they “bestowed their favours so abundantly upon the carpet, that I take it for granted the Presidential housemaids have high wages.” After this unpleasant experience, Dickens met with President Tyler in an office on March 10, and described the president as follows:
He looked somewhat worn and anxious, and well he might, being at war with everybody. But the expression of his face was mild and pleasant, and his manner was remarkably unaffected, gentlemanly, and agreeable. I thought that, in his whole carriage and demeanour, he became his station singularly well."
At their meeting Tyler, welcoming Dickens, said that he was astonished to see so young a man. Dickens smiled and later wrote that he had thought of returning the compliment but didn't, because Tyler "looked too worn and tired to justify it."
On March 15, Dickens and Tyler met again, this time at a grand reception that also honored Washington Irving, who Tyler had just appointed as the American Ambassador to Spain. The number of people who came to see the famed author was estimated at three thousand, just in the East Room alone. Police had difficulty in controlling the crowd, and the security pocket that was usually maintained around Tyler was described as "down to almost nothing." Another attendee described the event as "a complete jam."
Dickens met another President on this tour, the former President and now Congressman John Quincy Adams. Dickens had a more favorable impression of the 6th President. He wrote, "Adams is a fine old fellow, seventy-six years old, but with most surprising vigour, memory, readiness, and pluck."
Dickens also met two of the three members of the Senate's "great triumvirate." He liked Henry Clay, describing him as "one of the most agreeable and fascinating men I ever saw. He is tall and slim, with long, limp, gray hair—a good head—refined features—a bright eye—a good voice—and a manner more frank and captivating than I ever saw in any man, at all advanced in life. I was perfectly charmed with him." He also met Daniel Webster and in his writings, he remarked on Webster's "feigning abstraction in the dreadful pressure of affairs of state; rubbing his forehead as one who was a-weary of the world."
Dickens was generally unimpressed with Washington, DC as a city. He wrote that this "city of magnificent intentions" as he referred to it, was full of "spacious avenues that begin in nothing and lead nowhere; streets mile long that only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament."
On the trip Dickens also met American literary giants Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, and Washington Irving. Poe has asked for Dickens' help in finding a British publisher, something Dickens later tried unsuccessfully to do for Poe. When he failed in his attempts, he reported that his relationship with Poe "cooled."
Dickens wanted to see the South and observe slavery first hand. He had planned to go to Charleston, but because of the heat and the length of the trip he settled for Richmond, Virginia. He intensely disliked what he saw in Richmond, both by the condition of the slaves themselves and by the whites' attitudes towards slavery. In American Notes, a book written after he returned to England describing his American visit, he wrote a scathing report about the institution of slavery. He cited newspaper accounts of runaway slaves horribly disfigured by their cruel masters. From Richmond, Dickens returned to Baltimore, through Washington, and began a trek westward to St. Louis, traveling by riverboat and stagecoach. He found that he had more anonymity and personal freedom the further west he went.
Charles Dickens was generally disappointed with his American experience. He wrote, "this is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination." In American Notes, he was critical of the American press whom he blamed for the American's lack of general information. In Dickens' next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, he sends young Martin to America, using the novel as another vehicle to criticize the young republic.
American response to both books was extremely negative and angered many Americans. Dickens sought to make amends during his second visit to America in 1867-68.