First published in 1998. Early American historians are finding connections between the bonded status of African American slaves, European indentured servants, convicts, and sailors. An excellent starting point for this inquiry is this neglected classic by Lawrence Towner, former head of the Newberry Library in Chicago and editor of the William and Mary Quarterly. This comprehensive study of the lives and experiences of bonded laborers in colonial Massachusetts demonstrates the full sweep of their work and aspirations. Towner analyzes the legal status of all varieties of black and white bonded laborers. He explores their living and working conditions and discusses the cultural significance of work in their lives. The book also address gender issues in bonded labor. The author's approach provides a new understanding of the experiences of black and white workers in early America, and corrects a long-standing neglect of blacks in previous research. This edition makes this important work available in print for the first time, and includes an introductory essay by Alfred F. Young, "Dissertations and Gatekeepers: Why it took45 Years for a Ph.D. Thesis to be Published." (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University; 1954)
The essays and talks gathered in Past Imperfect cover a broad range of topics of continuing relevance to the humanities and to scholarship in general. Part I collects Towner's historical essays on the indentured servants, apprentices, and slaves of colonial New England that are standards of the "new social history." The pieces in Part II express his vision of the library as an institution for research and education; here he discusses the rationale for the creation of research centers, the Newberry's pioneering policies for conservation and preservation, and the ways in which collections were built. In Part III Towner writes revealingly of his co-workers and mentors. Part IV assembles his statements as "spokesman for the humanities," addressing questions of national priorities in funding, and of so-called elitist scholarship versus public programs.
First published in 1998. Early American historians are finding connections between the bonded status of African American slaves, European indentured servants, convicts, and sailors. An excellent starting point for this inquiry is this neglected classic by Lawrence Towner, former head of the Newberry Library in Chicago and editor of the William and Mary Quarterly. This comprehensive study of the lives and experiences of bonded laborers in colonial Massachusetts demonstrates the full sweep of their work and aspirations. Towner analyzes the legal status of all varieties of black and white bonded laborers. He explores their living and working conditions and discusses the cultural significance of work in their lives. The book also address gender issues in bonded labor. The author's approach provides a new understanding of the experiences of black and white workers in early America, and corrects a long-standing neglect of blacks in previous research. This edition makes this important work available in print for the first time, and includes an introductory essay by Alfred F. Young, "Dissertations and Gatekeepers: Why it took45 Years for a Ph.D. Thesis to be Published." (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University; 1954)
The essays and talks gathered in Past Imperfect cover a broad range of topics of continuing relevance to the humanities and to scholarship in general. Part I collects Towner's historical essays on the indentured servants, apprentices, and slaves of colonial New England that are standards of the "new social history." The pieces in Part II express his vision of the library as an institution for research and education; here he discusses the rationale for the creation of research centers, the Newberry's pioneering policies for conservation and preservation, and the ways in which collections were built. In Part III Towner writes revealingly of his co-workers and mentors. Part IV assembles his statements as "spokesman for the humanities," addressing questions of national priorities in funding, and of so-called elitist scholarship versus public programs.
An examination of women's roles, family relationships, and sexuality in three unorthodox 19th-century communal experiments, with analysis of the implications such systems may have for present-day Americans concerned with the sense of crisis in family life and sex roles.
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