Welcome to The Antebellum Magazine Edition Project

The Antebellum Magazine Edition Project is a database of selected periodical literature that has been annotated and edited for scholarly use by undergraduate English students at the University of Arizona.  The project aims to provide an ongoing, collaboratively-sourced reference for students, researchers, and instructors of the antebellum period.  The project piloted in an upper-division honors college course in the Spring of 2015 with the support of a College of Humanities Initiatives Grant. 

To browse the collection, use the links to The Broadway Journal, The Knickerbocker, or The Pioneer above, or use the search bar at the top of the screen.

 

Tales From the Archive: The Student-Editor Blog

The Truth of Mortality
Colin Francisco Pedron | May 19th, 2015

Though it would be inconceivable to attempt to pinpoint the true reason behind humankind's fascination with mortality, it is nonetheless possible to analyze manifestations of this fascination in literature.  The Pioneer, a short-lived journal of high rapport from the... Read More

Like Ominous Carriages Passing in the Archetypically Stormy Night
Kelsey Kristin Whiteside | May 12th, 2015

In the chilling excerpt “A Night of Terror,” published in the December 1844 edition of The Knickerbocker, a delivery nurse is ripped from her normal life and asked to do the unthinkable one tempestuous night. By the end of the piece, she is returned to her home, and... Read More

The Multifaceted Analogical Value of Nature
Colin Francisco Pedron | May 19th, 2015

Throughout much of antebellum literature, nature plays the role of arbiter between the physical and the conceptual. That is to say, nature’s patterns and beauty are often utilized as physical illustrations of some of life’s more abstract concepts.  Nature serves poets and... Read More