Historical Perspectives On The Colonial Revival In Progressive Era America

Between 1492-1776, although many people moved to the “New World”, North America lost population due to the amount of Indians dying from war and diseases and the inability of colonists to replace them. John Murrin states, “losers far outnumbered winners” in “ a tragedy of such huge proportions that no one’s imagination can easily encompass it all.” This thought of a decreasing population broadens one’s perspective of history from that of an excluded American tale full of positivity to that of a more unbiased, all-encompassing analysis. The Indians and slaves have recently been noted as a more crucial part of history than previously accredited with.

At this time in U.S. history, the United States was beginning to emerge as a global power and the effects of expansion would only aid in supporting the economy, boosting international trade and contributing to the vision of American exceptionalism. While the idea of conquering new territories and countries seemed to be an appealing temptation to most, it cannot go unsaid that the doctrines of manifest destiny and imperialism were extremely contested and controversial to many other citizens, especially those who suffered from the battles, wars, and hardships as a direct result of westward expansion and imperialism. Through a comprehensive analysis, the intricate relationship between frontier and empire during the nineteenth and twentieth century will be delineated while focusing on both the benefits and damages brought about by efforts to expand domestically and

As the seventeenth century started, just about a hundred years after Columbus’s famous discovery, the face of much of the New World had already been profoundly transformed. European crops and livestock had begun to alter the very landscape, touching off an ecological revolution that would echo for centuries to come. Disease and armed conquest had cruelly disrupted the natives. Several hundred thousand enslaved Africans toiled on Caribbean and Brazilian sugar plantations. From Florida and New Mexico southward, most of the New World lay firmly within the grip of Imperial Spain. But European powers planted three primitive outposts in three distant corners of the continent: the Spanish at Santa Fé, the French in Québec, and the English at Jamestown, Virginia. The settlement in Jamestown was the start of it all for the thirteen colonies, but the colonies began differently in the north, middle, and south. The colonies built the north and south

Colonies.12 The long standing approach to American History tends to provide a glorious triumph in a civilization conquering a ‘wild’ and ‘savage’ world. This understanding of history allows America to ignore the oppression of their history, while the Native populations remain profoundly impacted. According to Rebecca Tsosie, in her essay, The BIA Apology to Native Americans: An Essay of Collective Memory and Collective

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.

Patricia Bonomi’s Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America was not only well written, but also a very interesting read. She kept the writing style easy to comprehend, but not excessively simple while keeping a good grasp on the subject at hand. Bonomi gives us her view on not only religious argumentation, but also the religious events that kindled the flames of the American Revolution. She discredits the past historiography of the eighteenth century, in which there was a theorized religious decline, placing a rationalist century between the seventeenth century ruled by Puritans and the eighteenth century that revolved around Revivalists, which wouldn’t make sense. While Bonomi relies on many local studies

The period that carved a spot in American history was referred to as the “Progressive Era” (1900-1920). It came about when both old and new concerns and problems about the lives of many Americans emerged. The Progressive Era reformers as well as the federal government were successful in altering certain problems in society but was limited by specific factors outside their circle. Trust-busting, consumer protection, and women suffrages are the major reforms that the reformers and federal government established. Although there were other issues that the federal government and reformers failed to improve or solve, they accomplished most of their objectives.

Anyone searching for understanding of the rich planter class of the Old South would be fascinated with James Henry Hammond and the Old South. Hammond’s attention to detail regarding his plantations and personal life gives clarity into the Old South period of American history. Gilpin Faust seamlessly guides the reader through Hammond’s life and career, leaving the reader to hate Hammond on one page, and cheer him on the next. As president of Harvard University, Gilpin Faust’s other books include Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War and The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and Identity in the Civil War South.

In terms of expansion, the colonial experience was punctuated by the urge to push outward from the already settled regions into the frontier. Beyond the boundaries of settled territory, and even the Proclamation Line, laid the freedom to make a life for oneself and prosper by the sweat of one’s brow. As elucidated in Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, this prospect led the colonists to value the control they had over their own lives, a prospect largely unheard of in European history. While the Old World had reached its outer bounds long ago, forcing the population into ever shrinking tracts of manorial land, the New World offered tantalizing stretches of seemingly endless land, ripe for the taking. While the prior inhabitance of Native Americans posed a challenge to frontiersmen, the free state of mind was still a worthwhile pursuit for many. Similarly, the colonial assemblies gave the colonists a taste for self-government from early on. Members of colonial assemblies were elected from the white landowner demographic of the colonies, and the same group could vote for these lawmakers. What the Enlightenment and Great Awakening taught in theory, this colonial government demonstrated in practice. The period of salutary neglect that ended

Alan Taylor writes, “The Founding Fathers-the politicians who led colonial assemblies and congresses-did not distinguish themselves with self-discipline. [During the boycott of English goods to protest colonial restriction], Thomas Jefferson imported British glass windows for his mansion at Monticello.”(Taylor 53) This is one example of the contradicting era of cultural development in 18th century America: the continuation of closeness to England, and the steady distancing of the American colonists from the British. For the majority of the 18th century, colonial America sprouted shocking ideas of the power of the individual through events like the Great Awakening and Enlightenment, and the emergence of parties such as the Whigs. Meanwhile, they continued to hold close ties to their mother country through imitative actions caused by the mercantilist policies controlling trade and taxes. Although mercantilism imposed by the British brought the colonies and England closer, the ideas of individual liberty and choice that arose in pre-Revolutionary America including the Great Awakening, Enlightenment, and Whig ideologies divided them. These conflicting movements led to an era of dynamic cultural growth in which the colonies both grew closer and further apart from Britain.

As an historian and prolific writer, Maier dedicated her professional life to the study and teaching of late colonial and revolutionary America. She initially wanted to be a journalist but realized her life’s passion after taking a “Colonial and Revolutionary America” seminar as a doctoral student at Harvard University. Maier went on to teach at the University of Massachusetts, the University of Wisconsin, and finally as the William Kenan Jr., Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she taught for three decades. In the 1990’s, Maier was a charter member of “The

In addition to commerce, the growth and movement of people was also significant to the development of the United States. The birth rate decreased because people wanted prosperity for their children. However, this didn’t stop the population from growing at a swift pace. The pace was so fast that the Americans “spread themselves over half a continent … (and) that astonished everyone”. In fact, between 1790 and 1820, the population of New York quadrupled, whereas that of Kentucky multiplied over eight times. In general, the “Americans occupied more territory than they occupied during the entire 150 years of the colonial period”.

In a sermon delivered aboard the ship Arbella, future-New England governor John Winthrop declared that the new colony "...shall be as a city upon a hill” with “the eyes of all people upon us” (1630) . Evidently, Winthrop’s sermon held great significance for the colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as this sentiment – that is, to be an illuminated, moral example to the Old and New World – remained foundational to the development of their lives in the New World. Thus, it is clear that religion was tremendously significant in the lives of the northern colonists –known as ‘Puritans’ or ‘Separatists’ – particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries following colonial expansion into the New World. The colonies – Plymouth, Connecticut,

As reflected in the writings of several authors’ writings such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s How We Kept Thanksgiving at Oldtown, Lucy Larcom’s A New England Girlhood, and Robert Frost’s The Black Cottage, many saw New England as a place lost in the past (lecture notes, HST 158, 3/21/13). For many it offered a nostalgic look at what America used to be. However, this view is not entirely accurate given the fact that New England was actually more technologically advanced and industrial than most of the rest of the country. Still, a new view of an “Olde” New England had been invented, and thousands of people traveled to small towns and farms to see it. Tourism to these places was billed as giving you something that modern life could not.

The main reason so many immigrants fled from Europe was to free themselves from religious persecution. They were being forced to either believe a certain way or pay for a specific religion to be in their country, they were not allowed to believe or practice their beliefs openly without detriment of some sort. The New World was new and had endless possibility and opportunity to get away from such oppression and pursue a life free from prosecution. Granted there was also money to be made and competition with Spain and France to discover the New World which made it promising for the wealthy and aristocrats to invest