Elegant Tom Dillar

Abstract

Written by charles frederick briggs and published in the may 1853 issue of Putnam's monthly while Briggs was an editor there, “Elegant Tom Dillar” mediates a persistent tension in United States culture between working-class nationalism and highbrow culture. As a cofounder and coeditor of Putnam's, Briggs must have negotiated this tension often as he made managerial decisions at the magazine, which promised quality native literature, earned “unparalleled respect” in the literary and publishing world, and delivered some of the best American writing of the century. On the one hand, Briggs was a cultural nationalist. He supported copyright legislation, he repeatedly lampooned Harper's for its use of pilfered English material, and he enthusiastically endorsed the magazine's policy of publishing only original American work. On the other hand, as a former conscience Whig, he condemned annexation and the extension of slavery, valued elite culture, and was wary of jingoistic nationalism that could be used to foment working-class resentment.