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xxiii Introduction spoke to their taste, their wealth, and their station in life. As the country expanded westward, this added a new dimension. Western people wore clothing similar to that of working people—simple, comfortable, and easy to wash or mend—but sometimes co-opting styles from others. The more frontier-like the landscape, the more Americans came in contact with Indians, Mexicans, Canadians, French, and soldiers. Western styles reflected all these influences. Technology also changed people’s clothing and appearance. The mills and expanded transportation networks made it such that factory-made cloth was available to the point that, by midcentury, there were girls on the prairies, slaves in the Deep South, and New Englanders wearing it. Other technological changes had similar socioeconomic implications. FOOD AND DRINK Americans had more land and space compared to the population than the nations of Europe, and as a result, farmers could grow an amazing amount of food. Families ate the recipes handed down from mother to daughter, and so the tastes and smells found in homes reflected family origins. As the publishing houses pumped out newspapers and Americans read them, editors provided recipes in their papers and others published books. Foodways varied by region and state as well as ethnicity, but, over the course of the 19th century, certain regional recipes became nationally known. Cooking technology was simple. Women stoked fires for baking, boiling, and roasting. Cookstoves arranged a woman’s fire better, so she could stand while cooking instead of bending over the fireplace, but it was still her job to control it. The skills of cooking, making cider, and churning butter were passed down with recipes and personal instruction. Most people ate meals made in their homes, but by midcentury, transportation networks opened opportunities for restaurants and hotels to find customers. This moved women into more public spaces to do what they had done at home. Food fueled laborers’ bodies and titillated the taste buds of the elite. Combined, these old and new directions in food created a unique Amer- ican cuisine. HOUSING AND COMMUNITY Communities, past and present, are an interesting mix of the institutions made up of people—such as family, church, and government—and the buildings that house these groups. Houses, farms, courthouses, stores, and public spaces combined with the built environment, managed nature, and open space to create what antebellum people considered community, referring to it as “Society” or “Civilization.”