-Cooperstown: wooded hills surrounding Lake Otsego
-settled by Judge William Cooper
-Cooper spent a great deal of time exploring the frontier, which had a significant impact on his writings.
-Nature is evident in many of Cooper's writings: The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, and The Prairie
-Political:
Post-Revolutionary United States (1780s-1820s)
-many political writings produced during this period
Industrialization changed the economy
-transportation flourished (building of roads, railroads, the Erie Canal,
steamboats)
-farming was not as big of an industry as it had been
The changing of the economy and government right after the Revolution insprired many political writings from Cooper
-A Letter to His Countrymen (1834)