Literacy and the Social Origins of Some Early Americans

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Galenson

An issue that has long concerned historians of colonial America is that of the social origins of the English men and women who came to the New World in bondage. It has been estimated that half of all white immigration to the thirteen colonies was made up of indentured servants; therefore no quantitative description of the labour force or the social structure of colonial America is possible without some knowledge of what kinds of people bound themselves to serve in return for passage to the colonies. Historians' assessments of these early immigrants have ranged widely, from Abbot Emerson Smith's judgment that they were ‘the most ignorant and idle’ of English contemporaries to Mildred Campbell's view that ‘most were drawn from the middling classes…the productive groups in England's working population’.

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Resendes de Sousa António ◽  
Dirk Schulze-Makuch

AbstractNew findings pertinent to the human lineage origin (Ardipithecus ramidus) prompt a new analysis of the extrapolation of the social behavior of our closest relatives, the great apes, into human ‘natural social behavior’. With the new findings it becomes clear that human ancestors had very divergent social arrangements from the ones we observe today in our closest genetic relatives.The social structure of chimpanzees and gorillas is characterized by male competition. Aggression and the instigation of fear are common place. The morphology of A. ramidus points in the direction of a social system characterized by female-choice instead of male–male competition. This system tends to be characterized by reduced aggression levels, leading to more stable arrangements. It is postulated here that the social stability with accompanying group cohesion propitiated by this setting is favorable to the investment in more complex behaviors, the development of innovative approaches to solve familiar problems, an increase in exploratory behavior, and eventually higher intelligence and the use of sophisticated tools and technology.The concentration of research efforts into the study of social animals with similar social systems (e.g., New World social monkeys (Callitrichidae), social canids (Canidae) and social rodents (Rodentia)) are likely to provide new insights into the understanding of what factors determined our evolution into an intelligent species capable of advanced technology.


1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. H. Breen

Just before Christmas 1721 William Moore, described in court records as “a Pedler or Petty Chapman,” arrived in the frontier community of Berwick, Maine. Had Moore bothered to purchase a peddler's license, we would probably know nothing of his visit. He was undone by success. His illicit sales drew the attention of local authorities, and they confiscated Moore's “bagg or pack of goods.” From various witnesses the magistrates learned that the man came to Berwick with “sundry goods and Merchandizes for Saile & that he has Travelled from town to town Exposeing said Goods to Sale and has Sold to Sundry persons.”The people of Berwick welcomed Moore to their isolated community. One can almost imagine the villagers, most of them humble farmers, rushing to Phillip Hubbard's house to examine the manufactured goods that the peddler had transported from Boston. Daniel Goodwin, for example, purchased “a yard and halfe of Stuff for handcarchiefs.” Sarah Gooding could not forgo the opportunity to buy some muslin, fine thread, and black silk. She also bought “a yard and Quarter of Lase for a Cap.” Patience Hubbard saw many things that she wanted, but in the end she settled for a “pare of garters.” Her neighbor, Sarah Stone, took home a bundle of “smole trifles.” None of the purchases amounted to more than a few pennies.Colonial American historians have understandably overlooked such trifling transactions. They have concentrated instead on the structure of specific communities, and though they have taught us much about the people who lived in villages such as Berwick, they have generally ignored the social and economic ties that connected colonists to men and women who happened to dwell in other places.


1984 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Bradford

Radical historians criticizing leaders of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union have focused on their petty bourgeois origins. This article argues that although most organizers of the later 1920s did not derive from the working class, neither were they able to base themselves securely within the petty bourgeoisie. Instead, like lower-middle-class Africans in general, they were being forced ever further from the white bourgeoisie and ever closer to the black masses. This was apparent in all spheres of life – economic, political, cultural, social and ideological – and was also increasingly evident in protest. As racially oppressed men and women subject to proletarianization and engaged in struggle, ICU leaders do not fit neatly into schemas which stress the bourgeois nature of the petty bourgeoisie.


2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-261
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Daubigney

In this paper, the author describes and criticizes the theory of non-competitive groups. According to this theory, the non-competitivity of social groups refers to the existence and the reproduction by heredity of a bi-univocal correspondence between the hierarchy of social groups and the hierarchy of employments. Such a relation comes from the fact that the social origins determine the level of education, the distribution of inborn qualities, and the preference functions of individuals. It is also the result of the demographic reproduction pattern of social groups. In such conditions, the incomes hierarchy is the result as well as the means of the hereditary reproduction of social structure and of non-competitivity. Two basic criticisms can be formulated. First, this theory is unable to justify most of the relation underlying the analysis. Second, the proposed explanation model is unable to account for the contemporary ways of non-competitivity such as indicated by the statistics on social mobility.


Author(s):  
K P Sany

The status of tribal women has been like a moving equilibrium at various times and in various parts of the globe. It has sometimes been liberal and other times of constraint and subordination. With regard to India, gradual variations are marked in the works of vedic, puranic medieval and modem age writers. The (constitution of India guarantees several rights to Scheduled Tribes including women. Various studies on the South Indian tribals have always been ignored tribal women though they continue to constitute half of the tribal population. Predominantly, the male bias remained largely unrestricted as such studies were by a large, carried out by the males. The latter extracted information from male respondents, as the women were comparatively difficult to approach due to their inherent reluctance for the purpose.1 Hence, the world’s view of tribal women, regarding their own position in society, could not be put forth. Women have been playing a significant role in the society and culture and will continue to do the same in future. Even when the intimate relation of man and women is accepted and women have been occupying a very prominent status in the social milieu, the treatment of men and women has been differentiated in social structure as well as social organization.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Rojabi Azharghany

This study considers a question of whether blessings are commodified in the ritual practices of religious therapy associated with the certain religious figures. Buying the Air Berkah (Holy Water) from Habib Hasan Al Muhdor, a religios leader of Majelis Shalawat Ahbabul Musthofa, is a continuous tradition practiced by local Muslims at Widoro  Krejengan Probolinggo. By observing this religious (or economic?) therapy, this study attempts to argue that they have been transmitting the material thing, money, into the blessing of the attendant spirit mediums. As they received blessing and magical item from the medium air berkah, they reached for wallets to make donation. This study goes to analyze the ways their stock of knowledge are constructed through ritualized practices of buying air berkah and the ways it reproduced the social structure of Krejengan community associated with their religious belief in the commodified item of blessing. It leads this study to conclusion that religion of the masses requires holy men to satisfy the needs of ordinary men and women, and hence the sacred and charisma are corrupted by the demand for miracles and spectacles through certain mechanism, including religious therapy.


1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 90-97
Author(s):  
Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Ladeedah is an audio novella that takes place in a Black utopic space after “the improvised revolution.” Ladeedah is a tone-deaf, rhythm-lacking Black girl in a world where everyone dances and sings at all times. What is Ladeedah's destiny as a quiet, clumsy genius in a society where movement and sound are the basis of the social structure and the definition of freedom? This excerpt from Ladeedah focuses on Ladeedah's attempts to understand the meaning of revolution from her own perspectives—at home, at school, and in her own mind and body.


1977 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Galliher ◽  
Allynn Walker
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 678-700
Author(s):  
V Christides

Based on two important hagiographical works written in Greek, the Martyrdom of St. Arethas and his companions and the Acts of St. Gregentius, the aim of this paper is to continue my preliminary study of the countries around the Red Sea in pre-Islamic times, especially in the sixth century A.D. The most valuable information in the Martyrdom concerns the hazardous voyage of the Ethiopian army from the main port of Adulis across the Red Sea to South Arabia (ca 525 A.D.). This work illuminates aspects of that expedition which do not appear in such detail in any other source. In addition, it describes the ports of the Red Sea in the sixth century, i.e., Klysma, Bereniki, Adulis, etc., corroborating the finds of archaeology and epigraphy. Concerning the controversial Acts of St. Gregentius, the present author has tried to discuss only some vital information reflecting the social structure of South Arabia during its Ethiopian occupation until the Persian conquest of it (ca 525 A.D. – ca 570 A.D.), and attempted to trace the origin of just one law (the treatment of animals) among those supposedly imposed on the Himyarites by the so-called archbishop Gregentius.


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