Massachusetts

by Brown, Richard D.; Tager, Jack

• ISBN13: 9781558492493
• ISBN10: 1558492496
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Pr

Summary

From the moment the first English colonists landed on the shores of Plymouth Bay, the experiences of the people of Massachusetts have been emblematic of larger themes in American history. The story of the first Pilgrim thanksgiving is commemorated as a national holiday, while the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's ride have passed into the national mythology. Even the grimmer aspects of the American experience -- Indian warfare and the conquest of an ever expanding frontier -- were part of the early history of Massachusetts.

In this book, Richard D. Brown and Jack Tager survey the rich heritage of this distinctive, and distinctly American, place, showing how it has long exerted an influence disproportionate to its size. A seedbed of revolt against British colonial rule, Massachusetts has supplied the nation with a long line of political leaders -- from Samuel and John Adams to William Lloyd Garrison and Lucy Stone to John, Robert and Edward Kennedy. Its early textile mills helped shape the industrial revolution, while its experiences with urbanization, immigr

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
The Country That the English Found	1	(10)
The Worlds of Bradford and Winthrop	11	(25)
Piety and Plenty in the American Canaan	36	(22)
Revolutionary Vanguard	58	(31)
A Republic of Virtue or Liberty?	89	(24)
Hive of Industry and Elite Paternalism	113	(31)
Missions to the Nation	144	(18)
Irish Immigration and the Challenges to Industrial Paternalism	162	(21)
Abolition and the Civil War	183	(17)
Urbanization and the Emergence of Pluralism in the Gilded Age	200	(41)
The Twentieth-Century Metropolitan Commonwealth	241	(34)
Reinventing Massachusetts	275	(42)
Notes	317	(14)
Suggestions for Further Reading	331	(12)
Index	343