This book is based on visitor descriptions of antebellum Mobile, Alabama's physical and social environment. Mobile's foundational era is a period in which the city transformed from a struggling colonial outpost into one of the nation's most significant economic powerhouses, largely owing to the cotton trade and the labor of enslaved people. On the eve of the Civil War, the Mobile ranked as the fourth most populous community in what would soon become the Confederacy, and within the Gulf Coast region, it stood second only to New Orleans in population, wealth, and influence.

The city's remarkable architecture, beautiful natural setting, and abundance of entertainment options made it one of the South's most distinctive communities. Its cultural diversity added to its uniqueness. In addition to being home to the largest white population of any community in Alabama, the city also claimed the state's largest free Black, foreign-born, and Creole communities. Mobile was the slave-trading center of the state until the 1850s and remained intertwined with the institution of slavery throughout the antebellum period. By 1860 Mobile's population stood at nearly thirty thousand people, making it the twenty-seventh-largest city in the US. Although numerous histories of Mobile have been published, none have focused on firsthand accounts published by antebellum-era visitors.