Private Lives/Public Moments

Description

• 19 essays explore the intersection of public moments and private lives on topics such as: the ways public moments and private values interact concerns gender and sexuality (Chapter 2); the pivotal role played by religion in helping to shape distinctive regional cultures in colonial America (Chapter 3); a nineteenth century group of utopian evangelical Protestants who created a radical alternative to mainstream American society (Chapter 14); the intimate relationship in the 1840s and 1850s between race, private beliefs about the “proper” role of women, and the movement to end slavery (Chapter 15).
• The quests for wealth, economic opportunity, and status are described in a variety of settings: from the settlement of South Carolina (Chapter 4) and the opening of the western farming region (Chapter 8), to the origin of the factory system (Chapter 9) and daily life in the male-dominated world of the California Gold Rush (Chapter 13). 

• A number of articles focus on the assorted crises that confronted Americans during these years and how they impacted–and were impacted by–the private lives of its people:  the development of slavery and its influence on the evolution of the African American family (Chapter 5), the American Revolution and the dispute between patriot Benjamin Franklin and his son William, who remained loyal to England (Chapter 6), and how the national “divided house” that led to the Civil War also created “divided homes” for hundreds of American families (Chapter 17).

• Introduction at the beginning of each essay provides students with a context for the issues raised in the reading.

• Questions for Discussion” and an extensive list of “Further Readings” are included at the end of each essay.

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A secondary source reader that is a great complement to any survey text.

 

A collection of secondary sources that examine the history of the United States by connecting the private lives of its people to the public issues that have had a major impact on the nation’s destiny. 

 

The text examines much of what we call “history”  as the product of conflict or concord (or some combination of the two) between private aspirations, frustrations, and values on the one side, and public issues, events and policies on the other.  

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: EARLY AMERICA: FROM BEFORE 1492 TO THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1. BEFORE 1492: NATIVE AMERICANS OF THE SOUTHWEST

DAVID LA VERE

2. COLUMBUS MEETS POCAHONTAS: EUROPEAN IMAGES OF NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN

THEDA PERDUE

3. RELIGION, CHILDHOOD, AND SOCIETY IN THE NEW ENGLAND AND MIDDLE COLONIES

STEVEN MINTZ

4. SETTLING SOUTH CAROLINA: FAMILY TIES AND THE QUEST FOR WEALTH IN THE NEW WORLD

LORRI GLOVER

5. FROM AFRICANS TO AFRICAN AMERICANS: SLAVERY, WOMEN, AND THE FAMILY

CAROL BERKIN

6. PATRIOT FATHER, LOYALIST SON: BENJAMIN AND WILLIAM FRANKLIN

SHEILA KEMP

7. SOUTHERN WOMEN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

MARY BETH NORTON

PART TWO: A PEOPLE ON THE MOVE: LIFE, WORK, AND TERRITORIAL EXPANSION IN THE NEW NATION

8. PIONEERS ON THE WESTERN FARMING FRONTIER

JOHN MACK FARAGHER

9. FROM FARM TO FACTORY: THE BEGINNING OF INDUSTRIAL LABOR

BARBARA TUCKER

10. A NEW ECONOMY AND A NEW AMERICAN FAMILY

STEVEN MINTZ AND SUSAN KELLOGG

11. IRISH IMMIGRANT WOMEN AND THEIR MEN IN NEW YORK CITY

CAROL GRONEMAN

12. INDIAN REMOVAL: CHEROKEE WOMEN AND THE TRAIL OF TEARS

THEDA PERDUE

13. AFTER THE GOLD RUSH: THE MALE WORLD OF CALIFORNIA MINING TOWNS

MALCOLM ROHRBOUGH

PART THREE: SOCIAL REFORM, SLAVERY, AND THE CIVIL WAR

14. A RELIGIOUS CHALLENGE TO AMERICAN CAPITALISM: THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY

SPENCER KLAW

15. FREE BLACK WOMEN, THE MOVEMENT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS

SHIRLEY J. YEE

16. SELLING CHILDREN: THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE

MARIE JENKINS SCHWARTZ

17. DIVIDED HOUSES: REBEL SONS IN UNION FAMILIES

AMY MURRELL

18. THE CHILDREN’S CIVIL WAR

JAMES MARTEN

19. FREEDOM? AFTER THE CIVIL WAR: BLACK WOMEN AND THEIR FAMILIES DURING RECONSTRUCTION

NORALEE FRANKEL

A collection of secondary sources that examine the history of the United States by connecting the private lives of its people to the public issues that have had a major impact on the nation’s destiny. The text examines much of what we call “history” as the product of conflict or concord (or some combination of the two) between private aspirations, frustrations, and values on the one side, and public issues, events and policies on the other.

Dominick Cavallo is Professor of History at Adelphi University. He is the author of A Fiction of the Past: the Sixties in American History, Muscles and Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880-1920, and co-editor of Family Life in America, 1492-2000