Darwin Comes to the Old Northwest

Abstract

A decade following American publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 1860, a small, early core of volumes relevant to threaded themes of posited biophysical evolution and a vibrant new empirical science were starting to be available to settlers in the American Old Northwest. These titles, in company with intelligence disseminated in local newspapers and in public address, present an early view of what was to become an evolving climate of regional opinion. A dramatic arousal of public interest emerged finally into the semblance of a major American cultural debate.1 The emergence of numerous small stock and subscription libraries in the Old Northwest, intended to service the general reading of curious settlers, has been documented. An earnest solemnity, rooted in an ambiance of mission and ambition, became attached to the organization of these local reading and study societies and survives in some of their names: First Moral Library As-