ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by describing the character of New York City in the era of William James’ birth (1842). It begins with a description of the circumstances surrounding the notorious murder of Mary Rogers, a case that was dominating the news when James was born. The nature of municipal crime, policing, newspaper coverage, religious strife, and the wider city politics of the era are explored. The chapter then moves on to an examination of William James’ immediate family, especially his father, Henry James Sr., whose life-long eccentric religious and philosophical quests dominated the Jameses’ domestic life. Long peripatetic trips through Europe, followed by temporary returns to the US, were the common family pattern. The impact on the US of the massive immigration of Irish and German Catholics in the late 1840s is discussed, as well as the tensions that were gathering around the question of slavery in the South and, potentially, the West.
