Domestic Manners of the Americans

It is decided for Trollope and her companions to go to New York and Niagara Falls in the spring, then return home to England in the early summer.

After saying goodbye to their friends in the Washington area, they journey to Baltimore and from there to Philadelphia and finally New York, traveling variously by steamboat and coach. From their steamboat on the Delaware River, they see the New Jersey estate of Joseph Bonaparte, the older brother of Napoleon.

Upon reaching New York harbor, Trollope is immediately impressed by its grandeur. Trollope finds New York “one of the finest cities I ever saw, and […] superior to every other in the Union” (261). Chapter 30 contains detailed descriptions and impressions of the city. Trollope visits Hudson Square, the Park Theatre, the Exchange, and various churches. She also sees the flip side to church attendance: the “gardens of Hoboken,” to which men go on Sunday to enjoy nature and leisure, while their wives are at church in New York.

Trollope visits art exhibits but is not impressed with the results of American artistic effort. Visiting the “locks” on the Morris canal, Trollope is impressed once again with American enterprise and ingenuity, one of their best characteristics in her eyes.