The Puritans – History/Bible Project
The term “Puritan” immediately conjures up a picture in the minds of most Americans: a Puritan
was a stolid, generally unhappy, religious fanatic, dour and unsmiling, someone afraid of
pleasure. Or, in the words of H. L. Mencken, a Puritan was“somebody who was desperately
afraid that somebody, somewhere might be having a good time.”
There is much more to the Puritans, however; their story includes many things which we admire
in our own culture—thrift, willingness to work hard, frugality, dedication to a task, a sense of
stewardship. Many of these characteristics, which are truly if not typically American, can be
traced to the Puritans. When the famous German sociologist, Max Weber, wrote a work in the
early part of the 20th century called “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” he
referred in great detail to the experience of the New England Puritans. They were spiritual
fanatics—no question of that.
But the Puritans were also capitalists, and saw nothing in God’s plan for mankind that prevented
the accumulation and development of wealth, or worldly goods. Although, as one famous Puritan
poet said, their real hope and treasure often lay above, they were not averse to success in this
life. In fact, they interpreted worldly success as a sign of God’s favor. Thus many of the ideas
that we admire come from our Puritan ancestors, many of them transmitted to us through works
such as Benjamin Franklin's “Poor Richard's Almanac”—things like ‘early to bed early to rise
makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’; ‘a penny saved is a penny earned’; and ‘a stitch in
time saves nine.’ Although those are Puritan ideas, one might call them ‘secular Puritanism’:
attributes like focus, dedication, commitment, goal orientation, all sorts of things that we
associate with the Puritans.
Puritans did in fact know how to enjoy God's bounty. They had large, loving families, many
children, and they enjoyed holidays and other festive occasions, as long as they did not interfere
with work. Furthermore, they believed that earthly success, rather than being a sign of the
Devil's interference, was actually a sign of God's grace. Saints, in the Puritan view, were those
who led good lives, who prospered, and who enjoyed the fullness and richness of God's bounty.
While they saw religious implications in everything, from fire and storm to the sight of a mouse
running across the church meeting room, they also saw religion as a source of immense strength
that guided them through troubled waters and comforted them in time of sadness.
In the early 17th century the English Puritans discovered that while they had been able to get
along under the relatively benign reign of Elizabeth I, they did not do so well under James I.
During the reign of King Charles I they decided that the only way to find the religious
environment they were seeking was to go to America. Thus the Massachusetts Bay Company
was founded, and the great Puritan migration began.
This project asks you to suspend your beliefs about the Puritans and to get to know this intense
clan of people a little better. By looking at their religious documents, their poetry and their
stories, you are invited to plumb the depths of the Puritan mind in order to determine what
aspects of Puritans life and culture have remained with us, still deeply rooted in the American
culture of the 21st century.
Objective. Your job in this exercise is to investigate the contributions of the Puritans—or Puritan
New England in the larger sense—to our national culture, & to compare/contrast the persecution
of the Puritans to the persecutions of Christians today. You should accomplish this task by
creating a power point presentation, and creating an original work dramatizing the Puritan
experience. You can work with a partner and your dramatic presentation must be between 3-5
minutes. Be creative, include costumes.
Following are the questions you should address:
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Where do you find evidence that the Puritans were not as cold and unfeeling as they are
sometimes portrayed?
What was the connection between the Puritans and the Pilgrims?
What can you conclude about the goals of the New England Puritans from the writings of
William Bradford and John Winthrop?
What does the poetry of Anne Bradstreet tell you about the Puritan heart and mind?
What can you say about the Puritan economic system?
In what sense was the Puritan economic model a forerunner of modern capitalism?
Resources
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A place to start is at the Founding Fathers site.
The first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, laid out the plans for
the colonists in his “Model of Christian Charity.”
A Puritanism in New England site at Gonzaga University.
The Academic American New England page.
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
The Masachusetts Bay Colony Charter
Mayflower Compact
William Bradford's Journal
Anne Bradstreet
A site about Puritans at the University of Virginia
Colonial Charters, Grants and Related Documents at Yale's Avalon Site
Documents from the Puritan Era regarding the Salem witch trials.
The University of Virginia American Studies program has an excellent section on the
Puritans.
Books:
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Bradstreet, Anne. The Works of Anne Bradstreet (The John Harvard Library)
Miller, Perry. New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century
Miller, Perry. The American Puritans
Miller, Perry. New England Mind: From Colony to Province
Morgan, Edmund S. Puritan Family
Vaughn, Alden T., ed. The Puritan Tradition in America, 1620-1730 (Library of New
England)
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Routledge Classics)
A Bibliography on Puritan New England
This project is due October 16th. It will count as one test grade in history & one test grade in
Bible. Even though you will need to work on this project at home, you will have 3
opportunities in class to work on this project. It is up to you to be prepared for these days and
to use them wisely. You will be notified in advance of the days via the Middle School
Messenger & Homework sheet.