HST296a, Class notes, 26-January-2005
(See online syllabus/reading notes for changes on articles to be read.)
Who are we:
Jackie: started out in European social but moved to Colonial American.
Originally from Essex.
Erica - teaching
Charles
Chris - Spec. Col.
Margaret - Fleming
Caitlyn - teaching
Sam
will try to get the rest...
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A theme for course: what is daily life like?
Note: 1752: year England finally switches to modern calendar. Before
that, 1st day of new year is March.
Who are non-conformists: non-Anglicans, esp. Puritans
What are some of the things they are frustrated with?
- want to have a sense of self-control
- the fact that they left must mean they wanted to establish
something new
- drivers: taxing in England, land. Powell doesn;t say but "a
strong belief that if England didn't straighten out Puritanically that
God would punish it (ex: sport on Sunday). Anglicans - let anyone into
communion and lax on church attendance
England: surprising diversity for such a small geographic area:
- open-field systems: communal, some specialists in various aspects
of production (expert plowers, etc.) but more often "I own the plow,
I'll lend it to you"
- East Anglia: highest number of men with university education (and
Puritans prize that, thus they recruited from there). Also a Puritan
hotbed, though of course not everyone in the area was Puritan
- market towns,
- church-oriented villages,
- myland vs. our land
Chris: Powell doesn;t seem to go into "intent" very much. Also the
people he focused on didn;t seem poor or even terribly religious
So, moving to NE: Powell's thesis: First get the land, but land is used
in different ways so if you come from a community that is used to the
open-field system you look for that. If you come from a system that
privileges land ownership you find a community like that. Settlers had
to reconcile these two views.
Was Sudbury an exception to the rule in terms of other NE villages?
Sudbury was cohesive for the first 20 years (generation) then
population pressure came to bear.
I wonder: Two forces that would encourage splintering:
- they believe they can proscribe behavior, so they do, except
different expectations about what constitutes proper behavior will
inevitably lead to difference of opinion
- they make laws on an ad hoc basis which then become
insitutionalized. This incremental practice is bound to lead to conflict
Recommended books (books we could have started with):
hope.greenberg@uvm.edu,
created/updated 24-January-2005
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