Living in New England in the Age of Revolutions

Popular accounts of the American Revolution often emphasize the contributions of New England. When they invoke the region, they frequently mean Massachusetts, more specifically Boston, and often a set of fifteen to twenty men in particular—occasionally narrowed down simply to two Adamses, a Hancock, perhaps an Otis and Cushing, and maybe a Benjamin Edes or Paul Revere. This course will expand that perspective. New England encompassed a broad geography and range of experiences during the second half of the eighteenth century. There were, of course, those anti-imperial protestors who later founded a state and a nation. But many in New England were Loyalists, and many more than that avoided taking sides. Thousands of women, children, African Americans, and Indigenous people navigate the tumult in their own ways.

In the 1750s, “New England” encompassed just four colonies—perhaps part of a fifth, depending on how one feels about New York’s claims to the territory that would become Vermont. By the 1820s, the northeastern corner of the United States was home to six states that contained the full spectrum of American economic and cultural activity. We will explore the dramatic changes that New Englanders experienced through these decades and how they shaped the world around them. That will include study of the origins of the American Revolution, interactions between Native and European peoples, the anti-slavery movement, the rise of industry, women’s work, the impact of revolutions in France, Haiti, and Latin America, and more. The collections at the American Antiquarian Society are ideal for an investigation into many aspects of life in revolutionary New England. The AAS holds manuscript collections related to hundreds of individual men and women, town, colony, and state records, and a plethora of printed material from books and pamphlets to thousands of newspaper issues. Over the course of the semester, we will explore how these sources can illuminate life in New England during this transformative era.