Massachusetts Historical Society

Colonial Justice in Western Massachusetts (1639–1702) The Pynchon Court Record Get access Smith Joseph H., editor: Colonial Justice in Western Massachusetts (1639–1702) The Pynchon Court Record. Cambridge, Harvard University Press ( 1961). Pp. xi, 426. $7.50. John D. Cushing John D. Cushing Massachusetts Historical Society Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 5, Issue 4, October 1961, Pages 389–393, https://doi.org/10.2307/844037 Published: 01 October 1961

This book chronicles the political and intellectual development of the two major antebellum peace movements. The American Peace Society, a moderate peace group, aimed to work through the institutions of church and state to achieve peace. The New England Nonresistant Society constituted a radical group which advocated the individual's complete separation from all institutions and strict adherence to the example of Christ's life and teachings.

Journal Article The Advocates of Peace in Antebellum America. By Valarie H. Ziegler. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. xiv + 241 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-253-36864-2.) Get access Donald Yacovone Donald Yacovone Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 80, Issue 1, June 1993, Pages 262–263, https://doi.org/10.2307/2079752 Published: 01 June 1993

Journal Article The Cushing Court and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts: More Notes on the “Quock Walker Case” Get access John D. Cushing John D. Cushing Assistant Librarian *Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 5, Issue 2, April 1961, Pages 118–144, https://doi.org/10.2307/844116 Published: 01 April 1961

In the introduction to this intellectual biography of Theodore Parker, Paul E. Teed warmly praises my Parker biography (American Heretic, 2002) (p. vii). I can honestly respond that Teed has written a good book, although it could have been better. Parker (1810–1860), the great New England Transcendentalist, abolitionist, scholar, and preacher, is today underrated. Teed's is the first complete life study of Parker to appear in many decades (mine stops in 1846). Teed shows readers the full sweep of Parker's remarkable career and his wide range as a thinker. Teed plausibly makes “revolutionary conscience” his central theme. He refers in part to one of Parker's key theological tenants: individual conscience was the nearly infallible voice of God. This idea had revolutionary potential. In the name of conscience, Parker demanded defiance of biblical authority and laws supporting slavery. By “revolutionary,” Teed also refers to the ideological heritage of the American Revolution, on which Parker drew deeply in his antislavery rhetoric.

May the work of the L.T.A. go on ever upward and onward-gaining ground year by year; so that in future it will have its voice in the community, not low & sweet-but clear and resonant showing power and strength; may it gain that strength by increased membership, held together by strong bonds of love. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing Learn to labor and to wait. 1 Miss Ophelia S. Newell believed that teachers occupied a public office of unappreciated responsibility. As the secretary of the Lady Teachers' Association (LTA) in Boston, she penned these hopeful remarks as a coda to her 1875 annual report, borrowing the last stanza of a popular Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. For Newell and her fellow teachers, “learn to labor and to wait” underscored their steadfast commitment to the schools. They founded the association attempting to bring women teachers “nearer together in sympathy and friendship and also for a mutual benefit in debate and parliamentary rules.” Frustrated with being “accused of a lack of enthusiasm in our profession,” they hoped such criticism could “be remedied by an organization of this kind.” Honing their debating skills represented one of the women's objectives, but they aspired to do more than polish their chances for professional advancement.

The Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes Concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusets Get access Barnes Thomas G., Editor, The Book of the General Lawes and Libertyes Concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusets. San Marino, California. The Huntington Library, 1975. 88 pp. $5.00. John D. Cushing John D. Cushing Librarian Massachusetts Historical Society Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 20, Issue 3, July 1976, Pages 260–262, https://doi.org/10.2307/845123 Published: 01 July 1976

(1999). Party Spirit in a Frontier Republic: Democratic Politics in Ohio, 1793–1821. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 108-108.

Essays in Legal History in Honor of Felix Frankfurter Get access Forkosch Morris D., ed., Essays in Legal History in Honor of Felix Frankfurter. Indianapolis, The Bobbs Merrill Company, 1966. xx, 671, pp. John D. Cushing John D. Cushing Massachusetts Historical Society Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 11, Issue 2, April 1967, Pages 214–217, https://doi.org/10.2307/844247 Published: 01 April 1967

The craft of scholarly editing is once more facing into a time of upheaval. The increasingly digital nature of cultural and knowledge production means that textual scholars, editors, and publishers need to further reimagine the collective craft of edition making. This twenty chapter volume contributes to such reimagining by offering a series of timely reflections on the current state and future of the edition and how it is shared in contemporary contexts.

T HE two-legged pack rat has been a common species in Boston and its neighborhood since the seventeenth century.Thanks to his activity the archival and manuscript resources concentrated in the Boston area, if we extend it slightly north to include Salem and slightly west to include Worcester, are so rich and diverse as to be almost beyond the dreams of avarice.Not quite, of course, because Boston institutions and the super-pack rats who direct them are still eager to add to their resources of this kind, and constantly do.The admirable and long-awaited Guide to Archives and Manuscripts in the United States, compiled by the National Historical Publications Commission and now in press, contains entries for between 50 and 60 institutions holding archival and manuscript materials in the Greater Boston area, with the immense complex of the Harvard University libraries in Cambridge counting only as one. 1 The merest skimming of these entries indicates that all the activities of man may be studied from abundant accumulations of written records held by these institutions, some of them vast, some small, some general in their scope, others highly specialized.Among the fields in which there are distinguished holdings-one may say that specialists will neglect them only at their peril-are, first of all, American history and American literature, most of the sciences and the history of science, law and medicine, theology and church history, the fine arts, finance and industry, maritime life, education, and reform.No wonder that in 1889 one of the most articulate of all Bostonians, when mired in the plethora of materials he had to go through

In this article, I describe the partial forward integration of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Boston breweries. I argue that both brewers and saloonkeepers used the fluid market in capital lending as a lever of power. An analysis of the minutes of three breweries and their loan records, covering more than ten years, reveals that saloonkeepers were often delinquent in repaying their annual loans and brewery owners only infrequently threatened to call the loans. Using the structure-conduct-performance paradigm, I suggest that the particular conditions in Boston (a limited number of saloon licenses and a geographical position that precluded long-distance shipping of beer) gave the saloonkeepers much greater leverage in the so-called “tied system.” Brewers used vertical restraints but, because of obligations to British owners, did not fully forward integrate by buying saloon property, as brewers did in the United Kingdom.

Abstract This article explains the connection of the New England Unitarianism to the emergence and development of Transcendentalism and the circumstances in which the emergence took place. The article states that all of the members of the Transcendentalist movement were affiliated at some point with New England Unitarian churches. Some were even Unitarians throughout their lives; some started in another faith and became Unitarians. Most of the leading male Transcendentalists spent part or all of their careers as Unitarian ministers. Transcendentalists looked upon Unitarian leaders as mentors. The religious descendants of the Unitarians, the Unitarian Universalists, take pride in Transcendentalism as part of their particular denominational heritage. The article also talks about the many dimensions of the relationship between Transcendentalists and “mainstream Unitarians”. One significant theological difference between mainstream Unitarians and Transcendentalists was their divergent views of the significance and historicity of biblical miracles, particularly the miracles of Jesus.

Journal Article Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830–1890. By Wayne M. O'Leary. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. xii, 391 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 1-55553-280-2. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 1-55553-281-0.) Get access William M. Fowler, Jr. William M. Fowler, Jr. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 85, Issue 3, December 1998, Page 1105, https://doi.org/10.2307/2567298 Published: 01 December 1998

Als Literaturkritikerin, Herausgeberin, als Dichterin, Lehrerin und Feministin nimmt Margaret Fuller in dem intellektuellen Leben in Boston eine zentrale Rolle ein. Sie ist eng verbunden mit dem Kreis der Transzendentalisten, ist Mitglied des Transzendental Clubs, von 1840 bis 1841 Herausgeberin der Zeitschrift The Dial und von 1844 bis 1846 Literaturkritikerin für The New-York Tribune. Als ein Kind Neuenglands, das in Boston und Cambridge aufwächst, wird Fuller Teil einer kulturellen Elite. Ihr Interesse an der amerikanischen Literatur wird durch die literarischen Kreise, denen sie angehört, gefördert. Margaret Fuller setzt sich für kulturelle Unabhängigkeit ein, sieht aber zugleich die Möglichkeit, aus dem Erbe Europas eine distinktive Literatur zu bilden. Die deutsche Literatur gewinnt für Fuller als moderne Vorbildliteratur zunehmend an Bedeutung. Den Schwerpunkt ihrer Studien legt die Amerikanerin auf die Literatur der Frühromantik, Romantik und Empfindsamkeit. Bereits früh beschäftigt sich Fuller eingehend mit Frauenfi guren in der Literatur und entwirft Bilder idealer Weiblichkeit, die die Unabhängigkeit und Stärke der Frau feiern. Von zentraler Bedeutung für das Verständnis ihres Weiblichkeitsbildes sind die Werke deutscher Dichter. Der Akt des Schreibens stellt für Fuller die zentrale Möglichkeit dar, sich mit dem Bild des Weiblichen auseinander zu setzen und sich selbst zu definieren.

On 17 February 1777 John Wilkes, the controversial politician, pamphleteer, and propagandist, rose to address the House of Commons. Wilkes, renowned for his opposition to King George III and his followers, was equally regarded by Americans as a long-standing champion of their colonial rights. And it was in both of these contexts that he marshaled his oratorical skills on this occasion. The specific target of his speech was the third reading of a bill, proposed by Lord North's government, which would suspend the habeas corpus act through the remainder of the year for persons accused of high treason for actions within the American colonies, or on the high seas, or for alleged acts of piracy. Wilkes began by declaring emphatically: “I cannot continue silent while so important a Bill is pending before this house.” He then attacked the proposed act as “tyrannical, arbitrary, ambiguous, unconstitutional,” and forecast that it would lead to expansion of the American war that had been raging for almost two years. Wilkes illustrated the oppressive, unwarrantable and alienating effects of the proposed act on Americans by citing the case of a young colonial named Ebenezer Smith Platt, then confined in London's infamous Newgate prison.

Only a very surefooted, incisive-minded, and stouthearted scholar could have produced this epochal book.Ernst Posner here furnishes expert guidance through the labyrinthine turnings of archival organization in the 50 States.But there are times in the course of studying his guidebook when every reader must ask himself whether the American experiment in democracy, at least on State and local levels, has been a success or a failure.Often before confronting a new combination of boards, bureaus, commissions, departments, divisions, "parent institutions," anomalous lines of administrative authority, and ineffective and overlapping laws relating to the care of public records, this reviewer, for one, paused to reflect how right Judge Hand was in declaring that selfgovernment is "a venture as yet unproved."Caring for public records, like conserving natural resources, is both everybody's business and nobody's business.And so, in an individualistic society like ours, it has commonly been a neglected and a bungled business.In 1836 a New Hampshireman named Richard Bartlett charged American legislators, who as private citizens "would not sleep till their own title-deeds were on record and their buildings insured against fire," of utterly neglecting the safety of records without which government could not function and history could not be written.Bartlett's own State did not establish an archival agency until exactly 125 years later.Every archivist and every historian can tell harrowing tales of what happened during that century and a quarter of neglect, in New Hampshire and elsewhere-of records destroyed by fire, flood, rodents, and vermin, records hauled off to dumps and paper mills, pilfered and mutilated by autograph hunters, auctioned and recovered and returned to the auction block, stored in barns and under bridges, thrown away by printers after being set in type, illegally carried off by departing officials, and even used to line boxes or to sleep on.When exposed by publicity, such incidents occasionally do a little temporary good, for Americans are as incurably sentimental about historical documents as they are unwilling, except when goaded, to spend money on their proper care.Some years ago in Massachusetts two reporters "stole" from the State Archives selected letters written by famous Revolutionary leaders, and the journalistic noise that followed may have helped toward better housing and supervision for some of the State's early records.

This dissertation explores how capital-poor American traders harnessed navigational information and commercial knowledge to expand the geography of American foreign commerce from the late colonial period to the close of the Napoleonic Wars. American traders like those in the mid-level port of Salem, Massachusetts, who form the focus of this project, recognized that overcoming their knowledge deficit about navigation and foreign markets would be faster than overcoming their capital shortages or the economies of scale in larger ports like Boston, and they structured the geography of their maritime commerce to maximize the acquisition of market and route-based information. By the 1780s, Salem traders drew on their longstanding Atlantic commercial strategies to trade in new Indian Ocean markets as they had traded for centuries in the Caribbean, on circuitous voyages that they modified en route as they gathered new information about surrounding markets. They deliberately constructed broad and diverse commercial geographies not tied exclusively to British, French, or even European markets. This work redraws the map of early American foreign commerce, particularly American neutral trade, by foregrounding American circuitous trade across regions and across political boundaries and by highlighting American dependence on hubs of commercial information like Mauritius in the Indian Ocean that fell outside of major and well-studied shipping centers like London or Calcutta. Protecting access to information as a means to enhance the ability of American traders to compete and capitalize on new commercial opportunities, rather than simple Anglophilic or Francophilic sentiment, lay at the core of American commercial interests throughout the colonial and early national periods, particularly as places like Mauritius became the contested spaces in the American debate over neutrality and the union’s place in international geopolitics. This commercial context and this new explanation of how American neutral trade operated provides essential background for understanding the meaning and the stakes of early national debates over American political economy that lay at the heart of the union-building project.

Journal Article The Peabody Sisters of Salem. By Louise Hall Tharp. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1950. Pp. x, 372. $4.00.) Get access The Peabody Sisters of Salem. By Tharp Louise Hall. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1950. Pp. x, 372. $4.00.) Stewart Mitchell Stewart Mitchell Massachusetts Historical Society Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 55, Issue 4, July 1950, Pages 926–928, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/55.4.926 Published: 01 July 1950

Journal Article Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War, 1862–1865. By Noah Andre Trudeau. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998. xxii, 548 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-316-85325-9.) Get access Donald Yacovone Donald Yacovone Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 87, Issue 2, September 2000, Pages 670–671, https://doi.org/10.2307/2568825 Published: 01 September 2000