This book is an attempt to capture the spirit, flavor, and atmosphere of the exciting decade of the 1840s. The problems of that period were many, as were the possibilities. In many ways, they resemble those of the present. The American of the 1840s lived through a time in which the nation was troubled by people of a different culture, who crowded the cities, caused a rise in the crime rate, drove old Americans from established neighborhoods, and seemed incapable of being incorporated fully into American mainstream life. It was a period in which foreigners came to our shores to observe and learn how and why the nation held together, what made it go--in effect, to better understand the American challenge to the Old World. The decade saw the birth or growth of many reform movements, as well as campus protests and the alienation of some from the main body of national life. -- Introduction.