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Bibliography

Scholars interested in researching the Grant, Burr, or Cowles families may find the following resources useful in their initial survey of the field. The letters provide a window into a variety of aspects of nineteenth-century life: utopian reform, women's education in New England, education in the West, homesteading, the California gold rush, and the early efforts to minister to African-Americans during emancipation. This bibliography is only an entry point into various fields of study, and each resource was chosen with the letters and family in mind. Other researchers interested in compiling a family history bibliography will find the family history section particularly relevant to their work, as the bibliography is a virtually complete resource on the Grant family for the time period covered by the letters in the online collection.

General Sources:

Billington, Ray Allen. The Far Western Frontier, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956.
Billington's conception of the frontier as a cultural, not geographical, place capable on eternally renewing America's exceptional belief in democracy and equality.

Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. New York: Free Press, 1989.
While Evans highlights diversity in American women's history, she stresses that women's activism and participation in civic life was essential to the development of American democracy.

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America: 1815-1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
One of the best syntheses covering the first half of the century. Howe's work is useful for scholars looking for an introduction to nineteenth-century evangelicalism, women's history, utopian reform, and westward expansion. Howe's work is also useful for its coverage of nineteenth-century politics.

McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Civil War history in the Oxford American history set. Useful for an overview of the entire period.

 

Women's Education:

Beadie, Nancy. "Female Students and Denominational Affiliation: Sources of Success and Variation Among Nineteenth-Century Academies." American Journal of Education 107, no. 2 (1999): 75-115.

Kelley, Mary. Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
For an analysis of the female counterpart to the nineteenth-century male world of higher education and the mind in the context of the "civil society."

Nash, Margaret A. Women's Education in the United States, 1780-1840. New York: Macmillan, 2005.

Sweet, Leonard I. "The Female Seminary Movement and Woman's Mission in Antebellum America." Church History 54, no. 1 (1985), 41-55.

 

Education in the West:

Barnard, John. From Evangelicalism to Progressivism at Oberlin College, 1866-1917. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969.
Still useful for an intellectual history of Oberlin College, particularly for its place in the history of evangelicalism.

Shumway, A.L. Oberliniana: A Jubilee Volume of Semi-Historical Anecdotes Connected with the Past and Present of Oberlin College, 1833-1883. Gallon: Fisher Printing, 1983.

 

Personal Narratives and the Civil War

Armstrong, Warren B. "Union Chaplains and the Education of Freedmen." Journal of Negro History 52, no. 2 (1967): 104-115.
Places Joel Grant in the broader context of his work as chaplain and work with African- Americans during the Civil War.

Bonner, Robert E. The Soldier's Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.
Sixteen soldiers' diaries that provide supplementary primary source evidence for the Grant- Burr collection.

Brinsfield, John W., et. al., eds. Faith in the Fight: Civil War Chaplains. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole, 2003.

Silber, Nina and Mary Beth Sievens, eds. Yankee Correspondence: Civil War Letters Between New England Soldiers and the Home Front. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.
A collection of letters ranging from accounts of the southern front to the draft, the collection also features the letters of one family throughout the Civil War period.

Wilson, Keith P. Campfires of Freedom: The Camp Life of Black Soldiers During the Civil War. Kent: Kent State University Press, 2002.
Looks at the culture and acculturation of U.S. Colored Troops camp life. Useful for placing Joel Grant's work with black soldiers in a broader context of Civil War camp culture.

 

Frontier Experience and California Life:

Carstensen, Vernon. The Public Lands: Studies in the History of the Public Domain. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963.

Greever, William S. The Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848-1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Overview of mining in the West during the great booms in the western territories and states.

Johnson, Susan Lee. Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush. New York: Norton, 2000.
For a more complete picture of the ethnically diverse world of the California gold rush.

Linklater, Andro. Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy. New York: Walker & Company, 2002.
Study of land ownership and land measurement looking at the roots of homesteading in America.

Riley, Glenda. The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988.
Reevaluates frontier life from a female perspective and suggests that American regional distinctions may not be as significant in family life for women on the frontier.

Starr, Kevin. Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold-Rush California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Places the California Gold Rush in an urban context as well as situates the gold rush in a broader history of race and gender.

 

Nineteenth-Century Reform and Reformers:

Bushman, Claudia. "A Good Poor Man's Wife": Being a Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and her Family in Nineteenth-Century New England. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1998.
Biography of millworker Robinson that teases out the tensions between women's reform clubs, antislavery reform, and domestic life.

Epstein, Barbara Leslie. The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1981.
Particularly relevant for its discussion of women's place in the Second Great Awakening and its suggestion that female dependency rendered women's isolation in the domestic sphere not empowering but ultimately limiting.

Guarneri, Carl J. The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
A history of Fourierism that details its more moderate and radical critiques of American democracy and capitalism before the Civil War.

Porterfield, Amanda. Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Traces and reconciles Lyon's conception of education from its practical roots as a seminary for the middle-class woman to its evangelical missionary work.

 

Social Life in Nineteenth-Century New England:

Berend, Zsuzsa. "'The Best or None!' Spinsterhood in Nineteenth-Century New England." Jounral of Social History 33, no. 4 (2000): 935-957.

Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
Presents women's domestic life and womanhood as empowering ideologies before the advent of the early woman's rights movement.

Decker, William Merrill Decker. Epistolary Practices: Letter Writing in America before Telecommunications. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Examination of the material form of the letter, with special focus on prominent nineteenth- century figures like Emerson, Dickinson, and Henry Adams.

Hansen, Karen V. A Very Social Time: Crafting Community in Antebellum New England. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
With particular emphasis on wage laborers, Hansen's study presents the idea of the "social" as a useful conceptual category for everyday life in antebellum America.

Zboray, Ronald and Mary Saracino. Everyday Ideas: Socioliterary Experience Among Antebellum New Englanders. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006.

 

Online Archives and Other Online Resources:

Banister, Zilpah P. Grant (1794-1874) Papers, 1820-1874. Five Colleges Archives Digital Access Project. http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/mhc/banister/

Northern Visions of Race, Region, and Reform in the Press and Letters of Freedmen and Freedmen's Teachers in the Civil War Era (Curated by Lucia Knoles) http://mac110.assumption.edu/aas/default.html

Teach U.S. History.org: Aspects of the Changing Status of New England Women, 1790-1840 http://www.teachushistory.org/detocqueville-visit-united-states/articles/aspects-changing-status-new-england-women

"California as I Saw It": First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbhome.html

"Occupied Corinth: The Contraband Camp and the First Alabama Regiment of African Descent, 1862-1864." Online National Parks Services resources for further information on Joel Grant and his Civil War ministry. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/shil/occupied_corinth.pdf

 

For Further Information:

Banister Papers, 1803-1971. Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections.

Burton, Theodore Elijah (1851-1929). Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/guidedisplay.pl?index=b001159

Grant, Elijah P. (1808-1874) Papers. University of Illinois, Illinois History and Lincoln Collections.

Grant Family Papers, 1778-1913. Five Colleges Archives & Manuscript Collections.

Grant Family Papers, 1836-1874. Five Colleges Archives & Manuscript Collections.

Jones Family Papers, 1835-1932. Oberlin College Archives.

Records of the Field Offices for the State of Arkansas, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872. United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Microfilm M 1901. [Joel Grant]

 

Family History and Related Works:

Grant:

American Missionary. 1, no. 1 (1887).
Joel Grant

Andrews, Alfred. Memorial. Genealogy, and Ecclesiastical History [of First Church, New Britain, Connecticut]. Chicago: A.H. Andrews, 1867.
Joel Grant

Blanchard, Rufus. History of DuPage County, Illinois. Chicago: O.L. Baskin & Co., 1882. Joel Grant

Brown, Anselm B. Memorial Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Rev. Joel Grant: Delivered at the Congregational Church, Lockport, Illinois. Chicago: Cushing, Parsons & Thomas, 1874.

Chetlain, Augustus Louis. Recollections of Seventy Years. Galena: Gazette Publishing Company, 1899.

Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin. Cincinnati: Robert Clark & Company, 1881.
Joel Grant

Cone, William Russell. Memorial of the Class of 1830, Yale College. Hartford, 1885.

Crissey, Forrest. Theodore E. Burton, American Statesman. Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1956. Includes index and a good history of the Grant family. Also included a detailed account of Elizabeth Grant's life and the influence of Almon Whitney Burr on Burton's education.

Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. Addresses of the Living Graduates of Yale College. New Haven: Tuttle, 1872.
Joel Grant

Eaton, John. Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen: Reminiscences of the Civil War. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1907.
Joel Grant

Eaton, John. Report of the General Superintendent of Freedom Department of Tennessee and the State of Arkansas for 1864. Memphis, 1865. Joel Grant

Eddy, Thomas Mears. The Patriotism of Illinois. Chicago: Clarke & Co., 1866. Joel Grant

A General Catalogue of the Divinity School of Yale College. New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse, and Taylor, 1873.
Joel Grant

Hicks, E.W. History of Kendall County, Illinois: From the Earliest Discoveries to the Present Time. Aurora: Knickerbocker & Hodder, 1877.
Joel Grant

History of Henry County, Illinois. Chicago: H.F. Kett, 1877.

Niles, Hezekiah. Niles National Register. Vol 65.
Joel Grant

Perna, Beverly Hill. .Zilpah Polly Grant Banister, Nineteenth-Century Seminary Principal: An Inquiry into her Contributions to and Impact on the Advancement of Higher Education of Women.. PhD diss., University of Massachusetts, Lowell, 1999.

Porterfield, Amanda. Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Roys, Auren. A Brief History of the Town of Norfolk: From 1738 to 1844. New York: Henry Ludwig, 1847.
Grant genealogy.

Smith & Du Moulin. Illinois State Business Directory, 1860. Chicago: J.C.W. Bailey & Co.. 1860. Joel Grant

Smith, Carlton. Elijah Grant and the Ohio Phalanx: A Study in American Utopianism. MA thesis, University of Chicago, 1950.

Trumbull, J. Hammond. The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884. Boston, E.L. Osgood, 1886. Joel Grant

Walker, Cam. "Corinth: The Story of a Contraband Camp." Civil War History 20, no. 1 (1974): 5-22.
Joel Grant

Watson, Doris Finch. "Rudolph Barnard Griswold, M.D.: The Banksville Country Doctor." The North Castle Historical Society 18 (1991).
Grant genealogy

Woodruff, George H. Fifteen Years Ago: or, the Patriotism of Will County. Joliet, 1876.
Joel Grant

Woodruff, George H., William Henry Perrin, H.H. Hill. History of Will County, Illinois. Chicago: W. LeBaron, Jr., & Co., 1878.
Joel Grant

Cowles:

Cowles, Calvin D. Genealogy of the Cowles Family in America. New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1929.

 

Works by correspondents:

Burgess, Ebenezer. Translation of the Surya-Siddhanta, a Textbook of Hindu Astronomy with Notes and Appendix. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1860.

Burgess, Ebenezer. What Is Truth? An Inquiry Concerning the Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race, with an Examination of the Recent Scientific Speculations on these Subjects. Boston: I.P. Warren, 1871.

Crissey, Theron Wilmot. History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut. Everett: Massachusetts Publishing Company, 1900.

Grant, E.P. Co-operation, or, a Sketch of the Conditions of Attractive Industry: an Outline of a Plan for the Organization of Labor. New York: American News Company, 1870.