Retracing the Past: Readings in the History of the American People, Volume I (to 1877)

An * indicates a new selection. Each chapter concludes with “Glossary” and “Implications.”

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction: Sources and Interpretations.

PART I.

Chapter 1.
Past Traces: Fr. Paul le Juene, “Brief Relation of the Journey to New France” (1633) / “Jesuit Observations on the 'Enslavement' of Women” (1710).
Reading: *James Axtell, “Imagining the Other: First Encounters.”

Chapter 2.
Past Traces: *“Richard Frethorn's Letter Home ” (1623).
Reading: T. H. Breen, “Looking Out for Number One: Conflicting Cultural Values in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.”

Chapter 3.
Past Traces: *John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630).
Reading: Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “Migrants and Motives: Religion and the Settlement of New England,” 1630-1640.

Chapter 4.
Past Traces: *“The Stranger: Slave Recreation” (1772).
Reading: Peter H. Wood, “Patterns of Slave Resistance.”

Chapter 5.
Past Traces: *Anne Bradstreet, “Thoughts on Her Husband and Children” (1650).
Reading: Mary Beth Norton, “A Small Circle of Domestic Concerns.”

Chapter 6.
Past Traces: *Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741).
Reading: *Frank Lambert, “Whitefield's Use of Commercial Strategies in the Great Awakening.”

PART II.

Chapter 1.
Past Traces: *John Andrews to William Barrell on the Boston Tea Party (1773).
Reading: Alfred F. Young, George Robert, “Twelves Hewes: A Boston Shoemaker and the American Revolution.”

Chapter 2.
Past Traces: *Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790).
Reading: *Carol Berkin, “Women in the American Revolution.”

Chapter 3.
Past Traces: Anon., “A Brief Narrative of the Ravages of the British and Hessians at Princeton” (1777).
Reading: James Kirby Martin, “A Most Undisciplined, Profligate Crew: Protest and Defiance in the Continental Ranks.”

Chapter 4.
Past Traces: *Brutus, “Second Essay Opposing the Constitution” (1787).
Reading: Robert E. Shalhope, “The Constitution and the Competing Political Cultures of Late-Eighteenth-Century America.”

Chapter 5.
Past Traces: *Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson on the African American Intellect (1791).
Reading: Gary B. Nash, “Absalom Jones: Free Black Leader.”

Chapter 6.
Past Traces: *Little Turtle on the Treaty of Greenville (1795)/Tecumseh on Land Cessions (1810).
Reading: *James H. Merrell, “Declarations of Independence: Indian-White Relations in the New Nation.”

PART III.

Chapter 1.
Past Traces: *Hector St. John de Crévecoeur, “The American Belisarius” (c. 1790s).
Reading: Robert A. Gross, “Culture and Cultivation: Agriculture and Society in Thoreau's Concord.”

Chapter 2.
Past Traces: *Resolutions of the Journeymen Carpenters/Resolutions of the Master Carpenters (1845).
Reading: Ronald Schultz, “God and Workingmen: Popular Religion and the Formation of Philadelphia's Working Class, 1790-1830.”

Chapter 3.
Past Traces: Lucy Larcom, “An Idyll of Work.”
Reading: Christine Stansell, “Women, Children, and the Uses of the Street: Class and Gender Conflict in New York City.”

Chapter 4.
Past Traces: *The Stuart-Bennett Duel (1819).
Reading: Elliott J. Gorn, “Gouge and Bite, Pull Hair and Scratch: The Social Significance of Fighting in the Southern Backcountry.”

Chapter 5.
Past Traces: *Abraham Lincoln, “A House Divided” (1858).
Reading: Stephen B. Oates, “Advocate of the Dream.”

Chapter 6.
Past Traces: *Susie King Taylor, “Reminiscences of an Army Laundress” (1902).
Reading: Bell I. Wiley, “Heroes and Cowards.”