The Yankee in Europe

England, still viewing America with a resentful post-war eye, disliked the Yankee and hurled harsh accusations concerning lack of morale. The American at the same time was a novel spectacle for Europeans, thus an interest was maintained and so these Yankee plays were quite popular.

In the nineteenth century [writes Bertrand Russell] the English regarded America with the same mixture of admiration and hate...  It was thought to be a strange, wild, and revolutionary country; it was beloved by the young radicals and hated by the old conservatives.(Mody C. Boatright, Folk and Laughter on the American Frontier, pp 6-7)

French Philosophers such as Alexis DeTocqueville took the opportunity to scrutinize Americans as they were a subject of increasing fascination. In their journeys to the United States, they characterized the American as "a child of nature," unbounded and without order. This conflict between Europe and the ever expanding United States became a matter of popular culture and even became integrated into typical Yankee material.