John Jenkins and The Art of Writing: Handwriting and Identity in the Early American Republic

2012 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-525
Author(s):  
Richard S. Christen
Keyword(s):  
Early Republic ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
Innovative Pedagogy

Author of the first truly American handwriting book (1791), John Jenkins introduced an innovative pedagogy that, he promised, would make elegant handwriting “plain and easy” for all. Fusing old with new, he argued that synthesis–gentility with opportunity, aesthetics with utility, hand with mind–would come to define American identity in the early republic.

The Early Republic, 1789–1815

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-61
Author(s):  
John L. Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Early Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Past Half

The twenty-five-year political history of the early American republic, covering the period from the first federal election through the War of 1812, critically shaped the terms and path of American politics over the ensuing two centuries. During this time the United States emerged from the volatility of revolutionary politics to establish the bipolar party structure that has dominated the American political landscape ever since. The central ideological debate over the power of the national government was shaped by classical understandings of politics and by powerfully contested interests. This essay begins with a short chronological summary of the politics of the period, and then turns to the five broad frameworks that historians of the politics of the early republic have addressed over the past half-century: party structure, republican ideology, political culture, slavery, and state-formation.

Passing as a Pastor: Clerical Imposture in the Colonial Atlantic World

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
True Value ◽  
Cultural Power

AbstractMany impostors in the eighteenth century tried to pass as pastors in North America's churches. This phenomenon showed how increasing engagement with the broader Atlantic world could carry ominous implications for colonial religious leaders, implications that would become manifest in the itinerancy of the evangelical revivals and, in the early republic, finally crush any hopes of centered American religious authority. Eighteenth-century episodes of clerical imposture help illuminate the increasing loss of cultural mastery faced by religious elites as a result of Atlantic anonymities, itinerant ministries, and democratic sensibilities. This article considers why so many in the eighteenth century attempted to pass as pastors, from British wanderers like the supposed brick-maker Samuel May to notorious criminals like Tom Bell or Stephen Burroughs. Understanding the conditions that led to these cases of clerical imposture leads to greater understanding of the nature of religious and cultural power in colonial North America and in the early American republic. The eighteenth century brought a crisis to America concerning the implications of cultural and demographic fluidity as elites worried more and more about assigning true value and uncovering conspiracy in a world newly dependent on appearances to establish authority. The increasing cosmopolitanism, immigration, and commerce helped make the colonial elites more wealthy and powerful, but they also now had to scramble to resist the potential for deception and imposture that the new engagements created. Such conditions made new room for con men, many of whom posed as pastors to access the power of religious authorities.

Counterfeit States

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-78
Author(s):  
Sharada Balachandran Orihuela
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Charles Brockden Brown ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Paper Currency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
National Citizenship

This chapter looks to overlapping discussions of American economic health and growth to present a complex story about the circulation of currency as well as the circulation of late-eighteenth century conceptions of American personhood in the works of Charles Brockden Brown and Stephen Burroughs. These imaginative accounts of counterfeiting dramatize the intimate bonds of normative conceptions of citizenship and national currency. This chapter shows how discourses of counterfeiting distinctly frame the social and political geographies of the early American republic. Moreover, the lack of uniform paper currency in the early Republic (which produces social, political, and economic instability) mimics the lack of a uniform understanding of national citizenship in this same period to such a degree that some late eighteenth century authors respond to this dual precarity by proposing that counterfeiting a uniquely American form of self-making, both because the counterfeiting enterprise gives rise to new, albeit economically unstable, homo economici, and because these new economic bodies are themselves forging and/or imitating the dress, behaviors, and codes of propriety in order to capitalize on counterfeit currency. Thus, counterfeiting alleviates some of the anxiety about the lack of uniform national citizenship.

Inventor-Entrepreneurs: Patents and Patent Licensing in the Early Republic

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
Arthur Daemmrich
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Financial Returns ◽  
License Agreement ◽  
Patent Licensing ◽  
Early American ◽  
Starting A Business

Independent inventors have limited routes to secure financial returns on the time and capital they invest to develop and realize a new idea. Research into two centuries of inventors has identified their options as licensing patents once they are issued, selling inventions (and patents) to existing companies, forging consulting arrangements with operating firms, or raising funds and starting a business. This article explores patent licensing as an entrepreneurial approach using a case study of the largely unknown licensing program undertaken by Samuel Hopkins after receiving the first U. S. patent. A license agreement signed between Hopkins and Eli Cogswell, a potash manufacturer in Vermont, offers a case study of how an inventor-entrepreneur worked in the early American republic. It also provides insights into the links between intellectual property and entrepreneurship, the mindset of inventor-entrepreneurs, and the challenges of bringing a new technology to market at a foundational moment in U. S. history.

scholarly journals Approaching Social Setting when Analyzing Language Change in the Early Republic

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-324
Author(s):  
Virginia A. G. Meirelles
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Complex Task ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American

Any study that concentrates on language change should assess factors such as historical context and social structure. However, approaching the phonetic and phonological changes that took place during the Early American Republic (1776–1861) is a complex task since it was a period of considerable social, political and economic reorganization Additionally, although many biographies and studies on selected issues have been written, the scholarship about the period remains unconnected and fragmented. As such, this article exposes the theoretical and methodological preparation for a research on sound change during the Early American Republic by discussing how to undertake data collection and how to approach data analysis.

Susanna Rowson’s Barbary Captivity Narrative, or the Struggle for the Freedom of American Women in Algiers

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
Sabrina Zerar
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Sentimental Literature ◽  
Captivity Narrative ◽  
American Women ◽  
Early American ◽  
Gender Power ◽  
The Many

This research explores the feminist dimensions of Rowson's play, Slaves in Algiers or, a struggle for freedom (1794), from historicist and dialogical perspectives. More particularly, it looks at the play within the context of the politics of the early American republic to uncover how Rowson deploys the captivity of American sailors in Algiers (1785-1796) as a pretext to deconstrust the established gender power relations without hurting the sensibilities of her audience in its reference to the issue of black slavery. The research also unveils the many intertextual relationships that the play holds with the prevalent captivity culture of the day, sentimental literature, and more specifically with Cervantes’s Don Quixote.

Building America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean H. Baker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Water System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Early American ◽  
Transatlantic Exchange ◽  
The Us ◽  
Private Homes

Building America: The Life of Benjamin Henry Latrobe is a biography of America’s first professionally trained architect and engineer. Born in 1764, Latrobe was raised in Moravian communities in England and Germany. His parents expected him to follow his father and brother into the ministry, but he rebelled against the church. Moved to London, he studied architecture and engineering. In 1795 he emigrated to the United States and became part of the period’s Transatlantic Exchange. Latrobe soon was famous for his neoclassical architecture, designing important buildings, including the US Capitol and Baltimore Basilica as well as private homes. Carpenters and millwrights who built structures more cheaply and less permanently than Latrobe challenged his efforts to establish architecture as a profession. Rarely during his twenty-five years in the United States was he financially secure, and when he was, he speculated on risky ventures that lost money. He declared bankruptcy in 1817 and moved to New Orleans, the sixth American city that he lived in, hoping to recoup his finances by installing a municipal water system. He died there of yellow fever in 1820. The themes that emerge in this biography are the critical role Latrobe played in the culture of the early republic through his buildings and his genius in neoclassical design. Like the nation’s political founders, Latrobe was committed to creating an exceptional nation, expressed in his case by buildings and internal improvements. Additionally, given the extensive primary sources available for this biography, an examination of his life reveals early American attitudes toward class, family, and religion.

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