in one way it was imported from Europe since typography started in Europe.
About American types i must say that Slab Serif are the american typefaces, the so called egyptians (the inventors of the egyptians were the british, not the americans). I can give you a brief of what is slab and how it started if you really are interested on that.
About typefaces from that period of time i can say to you Ziggurat HTF (a good passage to digital from a typeface from xix century), the western style can be found too on fonts like Zebrawood, Rosewood, Madame...
Tell me if it is that that you want, that you're searching for...

Joel Santos // youremin
sound & visual

As far as text faces, most of the American fonts in use at this time were in the "modern" classification, but more likely to be the Scotch Roman variety than Bodoni. The individuality in design that one associates with this period shows up in display faces, both metal fonts and woodtype. These can be found in the specimen books of the era. This period was also the heydey of piracy through stereotyping, so while there were enough American type foundries by this time to make importing fonts from Europe unnecessary, designs may have been "imported" by this method of copying.

Thanks Joel and Juliet

I will do some reading on Scotch Roman!
Importing/copying is great. The typeface is for a book called 'Here once again'. It is about film & art and interpretation is one of the recurrent themes. Therefore revisiting ideas, interpretation and copying are actually quite relevant!

The book is bilingual, Korean and English. As a joke we decided to make the Western part 'Western', an homage to the Western genre of film. Scotch Roman type is probably a nice way to cool down any stereotypes of this genre.

Juliet do you know of any digitizations of said style?

Many thanks to both your answers

Andy

About typefaces from that period of time i can say to you Ziggurat HTF (a good passage to digital from a typeface from xix century)...

Your comment sounds a bit confusing. Ziggurat is a revival of nineteenth century slab serif faces, but it was created in the twentieth century.

Yes i know that Ricardo, but when i said Ziggurat i thought that it could be useful for 1985, as i said "a good passage to digital from a typeface from xix century" ! When it's a passage, it must be a revival, for his use he needs a digital way.

1985, have you seen the ones i told you?

Joel Santos // youremin
sound & visual

Yes thanks Joel. I had a look at them but they are perhaps more a revival of titling rather than text. Scotch Roman seems more appropriate!

Any good digital examples of this genre?

Thanks all

For example:

http://typefoundry.blogspot.com/2007/02/scotch-roman.html

&

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm2.static.flickr.com/13...

Nick Shinn's Scotch Modern would be one.

Thanks Craig, Nick's type is very nice. Anything even closer to the examples?

Andy

Would a little distress fit the bill?
E-phemera's Coldstyle.
Not a modern, but derived from the 1858 modernized old-style (post-modern?) of Miller & Richards.
As I understand it, both the Scotch Modern and the Modernized Old-Style were well-used in the old West.

Is 'Scotch Roman' a faithful digitization of this period?

Miller & Richards, thats the inspiration for Miller right?

Thanks Nick

Scotch Roman is, well, James Mosley's contribution to "A Tally of Types" tells the story.
Scotch Modern is an accurate revival of a face by George Bruce (probably) from a book printed in 1870 in Albany.
Miller & Richards was the name of a foundry; there were many faces produced there over the years.
AFAIK the Carter face name alludes to earlier days, before Richards got involved.
Miller is a Scotch Roman, the Scotch Modern and Modernized Oldstyle are later styles.

Thanks Nick that's very comprehensive.