Household Authority in Early America, 1600-1815
Modern History Honours Module MO 3109
Dr. Sarah Pearsall
(Anon., “Virginia Luxuries”)
Tuesdays, 2:00-4:00pm
St. Katharine’s Lodge, Seminar Room 1.10
Dr. Sarah Pearsall (smsp@st-andrews.ac.uk. Please feel free to contact me by email with
questions, comments, etc. Email is by far the most efficient way to get in touch. My
office is in St Katharine’s Lodge, Room 2.25. My office hours are Tuesdays, 12-1 and 45, or appointments can be arranged by email.)
This course focuses on shifting household patterns and roles in America in the colonial
and early national era, considering gender, race, and status as central ordering principles
of early American society. Structured roughly chronologically, the course explores the
experience of women and men, looking at their interactions across a variety of times,
places and cultures. Topics include cultural encounters, race, masculinity, witchcraft,
religion, sex, slavery, print culture, revolution, and national identity. There will be an
assessment of political, social and cultural transitions in early American forms of
household organization, as well as continuities in the vectors of authority and
subordination within such households. We will also consider the shifting relationship
between household and community. Focus will be given to the British North American
colonies.
I.
Introduction and Overview, Presentation Assignments (30 Sept)
II.
Entering an Early American Household (7 Oct)
How can historians write the history of households?
Presentation: A Midwife’s Tale
III.
Gender Frontiers (14 Oct)
How did views about the proper ordering of the household and society affect the
colonization process and the ways in which the English met up with the Native
Americans, and vice versa?
Presentation: Travellers’ Tales
IV.
An Orderly Society? (21 Oct)
What does the T Hall case tell us about the relationship between household and
community in early Virginia?
Presentation: T. Hall
V.
Sons and Daughters of Zion (28 Oct)
What do witchcraft cases reveal about relationships within and between households in
early New England?
Presentation: Witchcraft in New England
VI.
Essay Return Meetings (4 Nov)
VII.
No Teaching This Week—Good reading!
VIII. Strategies for Slavery and Freedom (25 Nov)
What effect did slavery have on the household, and vice versa?
Presentation: Runaway Slave Ads (online)
IX.
Strategies for Protest (2 Dec)
When negotiations failed, what recourse did dependents have?
Presentation: Runaway Wives
X.
Sexuality in Early America (18 Nov) (Reviews exercise)
Was there a sexual revolution in the early American household?
Presentation: Thomas Thistlewood
XI.
Republican Fathers and Mothers (9 Dec) (DEBATE)
Did the American Revolution fundamentally alter the nature of the American household?
Presentation: Republican Motherhood
XII.
Revision of Themes/Summary/Wrap-Up (16 Dec)