Analysis Of Wallace Nutting's Invention Of Old America

After receiving his PhD from Harvard in 1953, American historian, author, and academic specialist, Bernard Bailyn, continues to transform ideas of early American history with his award winning books. As we know, the foundation of today’s American Society leads back to the transfer of people from the Britain to the New World, in the early 1600s. In his book, Bernard Bailyn, author of The Peopling of British North America, An Introduction, gathers demographic, social, and economic history research to form four propositions relating to the migration. While identifying central themes of our history, he attempts to present an overview for American knowledge relating to the causes of migration to the new world and consequences of society created

During the early formation of our nation, many great authors were putting their thoughts and feelings down on paper. These early American writers were the foundation upon which the literary culture of America was founded. Among these are the early writings of John Smith, Anne Bradstreet and Thomas Jefferson. Their writings were completed during a time of exploration and colonization characterized by many historical political and cultural transitions, and their literature accurately describes the events of that period. The literary works of these important authors convey the hardships that they experienced in a new land, as well as the evolution of the government and culture.

Colonial life in America was a time of many victories and failings. It was a learning experience for the people of the time. In a A People’s History of the United States and A Patriot’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn and Larry Schweikart tell contrasting stories of the issues of colonial life.

Although “historians no longer use the word “discovery” to describe the European exploration, conquest and colonization of a hemisphere already home to millions of people”, it was one of the greatest and most important discoveries ever in our history that changed the lives of millions of people. (Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty: An American History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), pg 1.) For some the “discovery”of America would mean an opportunity for a better life, for others the “discovery” brought misery and death.

Colonial America was a time of great change and discovery. The era was a time of conflict between people’s secular desires as innovation boomed and their spiritual growth as they discovered more about God and explored new religious ideas. In his essay, Worlds of Wonder in the Northern Colonies, David D. Hall accurately argues that despite the secular advances of the Colonial Era, religion was undoubtedly the most prevalent area of Americans’ focus because the power of God was being manifested into their lives in so many irrefutable ways.

When the first American settlement on Roanoke Island was established in 1585 it’s primary force, Sir Walter Raleigh, had no idea that this “New World” would evolve into one of the most powerful voices in the modern world. But before it developed it would have to shaped by it’s founders from the Western world. Two of the largest voices in America’s early development are John Smith, who with a group of English merchants, hoped to get rich in this new land, and William Bradford, a puritan farmer who was one of the most influential men involved with the Mayflower compact. In their two pieces they both convey America as a place to escape but

As English settlers arrived in the Chesapeake and then New England in the seventeenth century, they disembarked their boats and marveled at the seeming abundance of the landscape. They arrived with hopes of recreating their “old world” and prospering from the merchantable commodities that were lying before them. However, English colonization did not occur in a vacuum, and the settlers soon discovered that their survival would be dependent upon a forged coexistence with the native inhabitants. Surrounded by Indian worlds, the colonists established unique regional identities, with the south becoming dependent upon the cultivation of tobacco and the use of slave labor, and the north establishing subsistence family farms and developing a commercial economy. This capitalist system eventually reshaped the colonies, leading to continued expansion that transformed the American landscape, destroyed the delicate intercultural diplomacy with the natives, and cemented territorial distinctions – creating “new worlds for all.”

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

This paper offers an inside look at how the New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies lived, out of the thirteen that settled, the different events that led to their upbringing, religious identities, and their day to day lifestyles. Rather, if it was a small difference that the colonist who lived in the same region were not living the same way their neighbor was, it may have also taken generations for the colonist to get things up and running, but along the way they learn what is needed to make their new living situation work.

H. Breen argues that the emergences of a sense of their own common cultural identity among the colonists evolves, more than anything else, from the exercising of consumer choice within the colonial market implemented by British mercantilists policies (Breen 99). By promoting the development of a colonial market, Britain was unintendedly fueling an unprecedented cultural transformation, fueled by seemingly harmless commercial transactions that were shaping the colonists’ collective mindfulness, into a sense of common cultural identity that would eventually take the form of social and political resistance against the wrongs of government (Breen 99). However, the merits of Breen’s argument seem to require emphasizing the colonists’ alleged disparities prior to the development of a colonial market, as well as overlooking their obvious similarities, such as those derived from their common Christian background. While Breen’s argument explores the merits of materialism as a contributor to connecting a dispersed population in solidarity, he subordinates the merits of a multiplicity of causes to his ideological interpretation of history, failing to provide significant support to tie that

Two European nations stumbled upon and colonized the Americas in the 16th-17th century. England sent out many groups to the East coast of North America in order to get their hands on two particular provinces. These two provinces were labeled as the New England and the Chesapeake. Although both nations would unite as one in the 1700’s, they were profoundly different and both provinces possessed qualities unlike the other from dawn. Also, the Chesapeake and New England founding fathers didn’t share the same intentions when they arrived at the New Old, which lead to many distinctions between the political, economic and social aspect of the two colonies.

Ronald Takaki’s “America’s errand into the wilderness” and Richard Walker’s notion of “prospector capitalism” in California have some similarities and differences. In Takaki’s Overblown with Hope, he includes a term coined by scholar Perry Miller. Miller used “Errand into the Wilderness” to describe a period in American history which reflects an ideology of colonial control and development. Takaki believed that the puritans had an “errand into wilderness” to discover a place where the eyes of the world could look upon them. The “errand” represented the process in reshaping America into their own image. This resulted in a cultural and physical transformation of natural terrain. Because of this ‘errand,’ there was a large value placed on industry,

In the early 1509’s-1850’s there were two Englishmen named John Smith and William Bradford that established in the colonies of British who came to the New World to share a common culture. These two men wrote journals,talking about what had happened to them in the past months and what they went through. Although they struggled and faced many challenges they did their best in order for them to survive for example, they had starvation times and although they would starve he would do his best. Bradford and Smith presented different accounts of the life on land and talked about an ideal vision of what the new land could be with the best of people colonizing the new land.Both wrote of their experience in America, were Europeans, and desired to settle the land. However, the similarities end there-while Smith roamed Virginia as a scout and a military man, Bradford planted his church community in Plymouth.

The definition of what America is, and furthermore what an American is, has been eternally elusive. However, it can be reasonably said that the vision of America rests upon freedom of expression, the right to property, and self-determination. These ideas are explored in one European’s examination of American agricultural society in the late 18th century. Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur illustrates the gilded nature of the early vision of America; one that appears to be simplistic and based in freedom, but lies on a foundation of oppression and greed.

In 1973, just one year after Brown’s “Modernization” article was published, Murrin co-authored an article with Rowland Berthoff titled “Feudalism, Communalism, and the Yeoman Freeholder: The American Revolution Considered as a Social Accident.” Although Brown is not included in the citations the two article’s descriptions of mid-eighteenth century colonial society are remarkably similar. Murrin and Berthoff conclude “…the century from 1725 to 1825 was far from static. The