Antebellum culture celebrated the home as the site of nurture, affection, and equality; indeed, the middle-class home became the model of American institutions and values. Narratives from the American Renaissance, however, reveal that this was a conflicted, strained ideal. Stories from the culture represent intense social, political, and literary rivalry. Thus, writers such as Cooper, Douglass, Stowe, Melville, and Southworth projected competing visions...