Drawing on manuscript and periodical sources from the period, Lyons furnishes the first full-scale analysis of Dunlap's work, exploring the significance of his book for the American art world and for the nineteenth-century reading public. Tracing the History's origins, production, promotion, and reception, Lyons pushes beyond its current canonical status--the result of its twentieth-century rediscovery and revival--to reveal the uncertainty originally surrounding the venture. The "History" represented a speculative bid for cultural authority that grew out of the intersecting ambitions of its author, one wing of the nascent artistic profession, the burgeoning publishing industry, and the city of New York.
By revealing the "History" as an entrepreneurial, partisan, and localized experiment, Lyons reinterprets the book's contents, elaborating on the roles assigned to the artists Benjamin West and John Trumbull and the book's championing of New York's National Academy of Design. Lyons's study thus illuminates the participation of the "History" in the process of framing a national culture in the United States during the early nineteenth century.