Comparison between the letters of an American farmer by Crèvecoeur and the various essays by ThoreauSt. Letters from an American Farmer by Jean De Crèvecoeur and various essays and journal entries by Henry David Thoreau present opposing views of what it means to be an American. To simplify a bit, both authors agree that there are two types of Americans: those who are farmers and those who are not. Crèvecoeur regards farmers as the true Americans, and those who are not farmers, such as frontiersmen, as lawless, idle, and drunken wretches (266). Sixty years later, Thoreau believes the opposite: peasants are doomed and tied to their land, and free men who own nothing possess the only true freedom (9). Both Crèvecoeur and Thoreau judge men and their professions based on industry, use of nature, freedom and legality. As America grew over these sixty years, industrialization and higher education created tighter communities unable to economically meet the land needs of farmers. In Crèvecoeur's America, "except for a few cities, we are all cultivators of the land" (263). In the 1850s, Thoreau's Concord was among many towns that allowed people to leave their farms for a more urban environment to house law firms, shoe stores, or surveying businesses. The separation of farmers from the rest of society leads to intellectualizations of the profession by thinkers such as Thoreau. Far from simple, hard agricultural labor, it is easy for urbanized society to forget the purpose and importance of the farmer in Western civilization. Crèvecoeur states that "industry, which for me, who am only a farmer, is the criterion of everything" (264). Indeed, lack of industriousness in any profession ultimately leads to failure. Thoreau, however, sees little value in industry... middle of paper ......d since Thoreau came from a self-sufficient agriculture background, modern America is light years away. Thoreau's ideal lifestyle is now impossible. Many Americans would be content with an unadorned life on a small farm and a clean, dry home. Perhaps the day will come when [the earth] will be divided into so-called pleasure grounds, in which some will take strict liberties. and only exclusive pleasure, when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other mechanisms invented to confine men to the public road, and walking upon the surface of God's earth shall be construed as trespassing on some gentleman's domicile. ... Let us improve our opportunities, therefore, before the evil days come. (Thoreau 667)Works Cited:Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de. Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America. Ed. Albert E. Pietra. New York: Penguin, 1981.