Looking across more than three centuries of want and prosperity, war and peace, Shi introduces a rich cast of practitioners and proponents of the simple life, among them Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Jane Addams, Scott and Helen Nearing, and Jimmy Carter.
In this well-researched, informative history, David Dean Bowlby examines church and state in the American colonies and the early national period up to the framing of the religion clauses of the First Amendment by the First Congress. Bowlby describes the history of the church and state up to that time as one involving the struggle of religious minorities against church establishments, with increasingly vocal calls for the free exercise of religion, liberty of conscience, and disestablishment. He shows that when the religion clauses were framed, people feared that the establishment of religion would lead to the domination of one particular denomination or sect, resulting in compulsory church taxes, obligatory attendance at religious services, and adherence to orthodox doctrines and liturgy. By focusing on the relationship between religious establishments and free exercise, he makes the case that the establishment clause and free exercise of religion must be taken together as a guarantee of religious liberty, because where a religious establishment was present the full and free exercise of religion was not. It was this concern that prompted the prohibitive language of the clauses—the Founders meant to protect the latter by forbidding the former.
It was indeed possible for Indians and Europeans to live peacefully in early America and for Indians to survive as distinct communities. Faith and Boundaries uses the story of Martha's Vineyard Wampanoags to examine how. On an island marked by centralized English authority, missionary commitment, and an Indian majority, the Wampanoags' adaptation to English culture, especially Christianity, checked violence while safeguarding their land, community, and ironically, even customs. Yet the colonists' exploitation of Indian land and labor exposed the limits of Christian fellowship and thus hardened racial division. The Wampanoags learned about race through this rising bar of civilization - every time they met demands to reform, colonists moved the bar higher until it rested on biological difference. Under the right circumstances, like those on Martha's Vineyard, religion could bridge wide difference between the peoples of early America, but its transcendent power was limited by the divisiveness of race.
In this study of the role of taverns in the development of Massachusetts society, David Conroy brings into focus a vital and controversial but little-understood facet of public life during the colonial era. Concentrating on the Boston area, he reveals a popular culture at odds with Puritan social ideals, one that contributed to the transformation of Massachusetts into a republican society. Public houses were an integral part of colonial community life and hosted a variety of official functions, including meetings of the courts. They also filled a special economic niche for women and the poor, many of whom turned to tavern-keeping to earn a living. But taverns were also the subject of much critical commentary by the clergy and increasingly restrictive regulations. Conroy argues that these regulations were not only aimed at curbing the spiritual corruption associated with public houses but also at restricting the popular culture that had begun to undermine the colony's social and political hierarchy. Specifically, Conroy illuminates the role played by public houses as a forum for the development of a vocal republican citizenry, and he highlights the connections between the vibrant oral culture of taverns and the expanding print culture of newspapers and political pamphlets in the eighteenth century.
This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.
A look at 17th-century New England religion as it was practiced by the vast majority of the population, not by the clergy. This work offers insight into Puritan rituals, attitudes toward the natural word, and the creative tension between Puritan laity and clergy.
A revelatory account of the aspirations and accomplishments of the people who founded the New England colonies, comparing the reforms they enacted with those attempted in England during the period of the English Revolution. Distinguished historian David D. Hall looks afresh at how the colonists set up churches, civil governments, and methods for distributing land. Bringing with them a deep fear of arbitrary, unlimited authority grounded in either church or state, these settlers based their churches on the participation of laypeople and insisted on “consent” as a premise of all civil governance. Encouraging broad participation and relying on the vigorous use of petitioning, they also transformed civil and criminal law and the workings of courts. The outcome was a civil society far less authoritarian and hierarchical than was customary in their age—indeed, a society so advanced that a few dared to describe it as “democratical.” They were well ahead of their time in doing so. As Puritans, the colonists also hoped to exemplify a social ethics of equity, peace, and the common good. In a case study of a single town, Hall follows a minister as he encourages the townspeople to live up to these high standards in their politics. This is a book that challenges us to discard long-standing stereotypes of the Puritans as temperamentally authoritarian and their leadership as despotic. Hall demonstrates exactly the opposite. Here, we watch the colonists as they insist on aligning institutions and social practice with equity and liberty. A stunning re-evaluation of the earliest moments of New England’s history, revealing the colonists to be the most effective and daring reformers of their day.
Misunderstandings between races, hostilities between cultures. Anxiety from living in a time of war in one's own land. Being accused of profiteering when food was scarce. Unruly residents in a remote frontier community. Charged with speaking the unspeakable and publishing the unprintable. All of this can be found in the life of one man--William Pynchon, the Puritan entrepreneur and founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1636. Two things in particular stand out in Pynchon's pioneering life: he enjoyed extraordinary and uniquely positive relationships with Native peoples, and he wrote the first book banned--and burned--in Boston. Now for the first time, this book provides a comprehensive account of Pynchon's story, beginning in England, through his New England adventures, to his return home. Discover the fabric of his times and the roles Pynchon played in the Puritan venture in Old England and New England.
Ahead of the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, a new look at the Plymouth colony's founding events, told for the first time with Wampanoag people at the heart of the story. In March 1621, when Plymouth's survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth's governor, John Carver, declared their people's friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the “First Thanksgiving.” The treaty remained operative until King Philip's War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end. 400 years after that famous meal, historian David J. Silverman sheds profound new light on the events that led to the creation, and bloody dissolution, of this alliance. Focusing on the Wampanoag Indians, Silverman deepens the narrative to consider tensions that developed well before 1620 and lasted long after the devastating war-tracing the Wampanoags' ongoing struggle for self-determination up to this very day. This unsettling history reveals why some modern Native people hold a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, a holiday which celebrates a myth of colonialism and white proprietorship of the United States. This Land is Their Land shows that it is time to rethink how we, as a pluralistic nation, tell the history of Thanksgiving.
Historian David Moss adapts the case study method made famous by Harvard Business School to revitalize our conversations about governance and democracy and show how the United States has often thrived on political conflict. These 19 cases ask us to weigh choices and consequences, wrestle with momentous decisions, and come to our own conclusions.
These essays introduce the complexities of researching and analyzing race. This book focuses on problems confronted while researching, writing and interpreting race and slavery, such as conflict between ideological perspectives, and changing interpretations of the questions.
In Greeks, Romans, and Pilgrims David Lupher examines the availability, circulation, and uses of Greek and Roman culture in the earliest period of the British settlement of New England. This book offers the first systematic correction to the dominant assumption that the Separatist settlers of Plymouth Plantation (the so-called “Pilgrims”) were hostile or indifferent to “humane learning”— a belief dating back to their cordial enemy, the May-pole reveler Thomas Morton of Ma-re Mount, whose own eccentric classical negotiations receive a chapter in this book. While there have been numerous studies of the uses of classical culture during the Revolutionary period of colonial North America, the first decades of settlement in New England have been neglected. Utilizing both familiar texts such as William Bradford’s Of Plimmoth Plantation and overlooked archival sources, Greeks, Romans, and Pilgrims signals the end of that neglect.
This four-volume reset edition presents a wide-ranging collection of primary sources which uncover the language and behaviour of local and state authorities, of peasants and town-dwellers, and of drinking companions and irate wives.
Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook on CasebookConnect, including: lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities, plus an outline tool and other helpful resources. Connected eBooks provide what you need most to be successful in your law school classes. Learn more about Connected eBooks. The right to keep and bear arms evokes great controversy. To some, it is a bulwark against tyranny and criminal violence; to others, it is an anachronism and serious danger. Firearms Law and the Second Amendment is the leading casebook and scholarly treatise on arms law. It provides a comprehensive domestic and international treatment of the history of arms law. In-depth coverage of modern federal and state laws and litigation prepare students to be practice-ready for firearms cases. The book covers legal history from ninth-century England through the United States in 2021. It examines arms laws and culture in broad social context, ranging from racial issues to technological advances. Seven online chapters cover arms laws in global historical context, from Confucian times to the present. The online chapters also discuss arms law and policy relating to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other statuses and how firearms and ammunition work. New to the Third Edition: Important cases and new regulatory issues since the 2017 second edition, including public carry, limits on in-home possession, bans on types of arms, non-firearm arms (like knives or sprays), Red Flag laws, and restoration of firearms rights Expanded social science and criminological data about firearms ownership and crimes Deeper coverage of state arms control laws and constitutional provisions Extended analysis of how Native American firearm policies and skills shaped interactions with European-Americans, provided the tools for three centuries of resistance, and became a foundation of American arms culture The latest research on English legal history, which is essential to modern cases on the right to bear arms Professors, students, and practicing lawyers will benefit from: Practical advice and resource guides for lawyers, like early career prosecutors or defenders, who will soon practice firearms law Five chapters on the diverse approaches of lower courts in applying the Supreme Court precedents in Heller and McDonald to contemporary laws Historical sources that shaped, and continue to influence, the right to arms
Distinguished by the critical value it assigns to law in Puritan society, this study describes precisely how the Massachusetts legal system differed from England's and how equity and an adapted common law became so useful to ordinary individuals. The author discovers that law gradually replaced religion and communalism as the source of social stability, and he gives a new interpretation to the witchcraft prosecutions of 1692. Originally published 1979. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
There are few episodes in American history as interesting and controversial as the Salem Witch Trials. This work provides a revealing analysis of what it was like to live in Massachusetts during that time, creating a nuanced profile of New England Puritans and their culture. What was it like to live in the colony of Massachusetts during the last decade of the 17th century, the decade famed for the Salem Witch Trials? Daily Life during the Salem Witch Trials answers that question, offering a vivid portrait essential to anyone seeking to understand the traumatic events of the time in their proper historical context. The book begins with a historical overview tracing the development of the Puritan experiment in the Massachusetts colony from 1620 to 1692. It then explores the cultural values and day-to-day concerns of Puritan society in the late-17th century, including trends and patterns of behavior in family life, household activities, business and economics, political and military responsibilities, and religious belief. Each chapter interprets a different aspect of daily life as it was experienced by those who lived through the social crisis of the witch trials of 1692–93, helping readers better comprehend how the history-making events of those years could come to pass.
This book explores the history of public land tenure records, which first began in colonial Massachusetts as English settlers and Native Americans tried to resolve differing ideas about rights to land in the seventeenth century. In South Australia, a similar method of state certification of land ownership arose in the nineteenth century, through Torrens system title registration – a process that would be widely adopted in British and American colonies as a particularly effective way of guaranteeing absolute ('fee simple') ownership over indigenous peoples’ land. This book explores the similarities between these two record systems, highlighting how similar settlement patterns and religious beliefs in both places focused attention on recording land tenure, and illustrating how these record systems encouraged new ways of thinking about rights to and on land.
In People of the Wachusett the history of the New England town becomes the cultural history of America's first frontier. Integral to this history are the firsthand narratives of town founders and citizens - English, French, and Native American - whose accounts of trading and warring, relocating and putting down roots proved essential to the building of these communities.
The common theme of this selection of articles by David Cressy, published over the last twenty-five years, is the linkage of elite and popular culture and the participation of ordinary people in the central events of their age. The collection also traces a development in historical style and method, from quantitative applications using statistics to qualitative telling of tales. Seven essays under the heading 'Opportunities' explore problems of education, literacy and cultural attainment within the gendered and hierarchically ordered society of Elizabeth and Stuart England. Eight more under the heading 'Passages' examine social and cultural interactions, kinship, migration, community celebrations, and rituals in the life-cycle. The collection brings together a coherent body of research that is much cited in current scholarship and continues to shape the agenda for the social and cultural history of early modern England.
Thanks to coded notes taken by the teenager John Pynchon, this volume virtually transports the reader back to Sundays in the seventeenth century, when the community gathered to listen to the Rev. George Moxon. The setting was Springfield, Massachusetts, founded in 1636 by John's father William Pynchon. As a note-taker, John recorded just what he heard in this rare resource, which allows the reader to listen in on the weekly sermons he documented in the 1640s. This symbol-by-symbol transcription into a word-for-word text preserves the character of the minister's original remarks, and reveals Moxon as an able, engaging speaker who offered encouragement--and challenge--to the growing plantation he faithfully served through its earliest years on the edge of a wilderness. Not only do the sermons in this collection provide snippets of popular theological discourse at particular moments in the 1600s; they also point to issues of the day, and they help us get inside the thoughts and word patterns of that era.
The adoption of firearms by American Indians between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries marked a turning point in the history of North America’s indigenous peoples—a cultural earthquake so profound, says David Silverman, that its impact has yet to be adequately measured. Thundersticks reframes our understanding of Indians’ historical relationship with guns, arguing against the notion that they prized these weapons more for the pyrotechnic terror guns inspired than for their efficiency as tools of war. Native peoples fully recognized the potential of firearms to assist them in their struggles against colonial forces, and mostly against one another. The smoothbore, flintlock musket was Indians’ stock firearm, and its destructive potential transformed their lives. For the deer hunters east of the Mississippi, the gun evolved into an essential hunting tool. Most importantly, well-armed tribes were able to capture and enslave their neighbors, plunder wealth, and conquer territory. Arms races erupted across North America, intensifying intertribal rivalries and solidifying the importance of firearms in Indian politics and culture. Though American tribes grew dependent on guns manufactured in Europe and the United States, their dependence never prevented them from rising up against Euro-American power. The Seminoles, Blackfeet, Lakotas, and others remained formidably armed right up to the time of their subjugation. Far from being a Trojan horse for colonialism, firearms empowered American Indians to pursue their interests and defend their political and economic autonomy over two centuries.
Now available in paperback, this award-winning book provides a comprehensive history of gender policies and practices in American public schools. David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot explore the many factors that have shaped coeducation since its origins. At the very time that Americans were creating separate spheres for adult men and women, they institutionalized an education system that brought boys and girls together. How did beliefs about the similarities and differences of boys and girls shape policy and practice in schools? To what degree did the treatment of boys and girls differ by class, race, region, and historical period? Debates over gender policies suggest that American have made public education the repository of their hopes and anxieties about relationships between the sexes. Thus, the history of coeducation serves as a window not only on constancy and change in gender practices in the schools but also on cultural conflicts about gender in the broader society. "Learning Together presents a rich and exhaustive search through [the] 'tangled history' of gender and education that links both the silences and the debates surrounding coeducation to the changing roles of women and men in our society....It is the generosity and capaciousness of Tyack and Hansot's scholarship that makes Learning Together so important a book." —Science
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