Davy Crockett and Tall Tales

intellectual boundaries under the leadership of the generation born after 1775. Free of external threats, American society focused inward, towards individualism, and wrestled with the implications of a changing society.

Improvements in agriculture, industry, and transportation led to calls for the development of a distinctive American literary and artistic style, and writers and artists responded.

In the 1830s technology began to transform newspapers and books. Cheaper paper and steam-driven presses drastically lowered production costs, and enterprising journalists and writers saw the potential.

Novels became affordable and enormously popular between 1830 and 1860. In the 1840s cheap paperbacks selling for as little as seven cents flooded the national market.

“The American Scholar”, an address by Emerson in 1837, constituted an intellectual Declaration of Independence. Americans had too long deferred to European precedents, he proclaimed. The democratic spirit of the age had made Americans more self-reliant, and the time had come for them to break free of European standards and to trust themselves. In addition, Emerson’s address adopted romanticism, the major intellectual movement of the first half of the nineteenth century, which celebrated the nation and the individual.

In 1800 American authors had accounted for less than 1% of the output of American publishers. By 1830, that number increased to 40%, and by 1850, 75% of all books published in America were by American authors. In this environment then, we can see how the conditions were ripe for tall tales to spring forth that centered around American heroes such as Davy Crockett.

Characteristics of Tall Tales

1. The main character accomplishes great feats using strength, skill and wits.

2. The main character is helped by a powerful object or animal.

3. The story starts when the hero is a child.

4. The story explains how some familiar things began.

5. The hero does not like what others call progress.

6. The hero saves the day, but often ends up dying or disappears.