
The Atlantic was crossed and recrossed by reformers paying visits to one another, going on lecture tours, and attending Anglo-American conventions against slavery and for temperance or world peace; it was also crossed by writings about reform, including pieces by corresponding societies; reform petitions and "Friendly Addresses"; as well as pamphlets, periodicals, and novels. In the antebellum period, the authors associated with what would come to be called the American Renaissance sought to create such a literature by renouncing their cultural inheritance from Europe.