Category: Contemporary Connections

Contemporary Connections, Special Features

A Walking Tour of Thomas Prince’s London – Christopher Trigg

Harvard graduate Thomas Prince (1687-1758) visited London twice between 1709 and 1711. In his travel journal (now in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society) the future minister of Boston’s Old South Church wrote of his excitement at arriving in “the Greatest and most Flourishing City of the Universe.”1 My article in the Fall 2023 issue of Early American Studies discusses the numerous poetic transcriptions that Prince made in that…

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Contemporary Connections

Not a Witch: Public History in a Maine Graveyard – Daniel Bottino and Hannah Peterson

The most famous gravestone in the “old burial ground” of York, Maine is not that of a politician, soldier, or notable author. Rather, it is the gravestone of an ordinary eighteenth-century housewife and mother that draws a constant stream of visitors from across the United States. Standing in an area of the graveyard relatively empty of stones, the finely carved slate marker has endured over two hundred years and remains…

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Contemporary Connections, Special Features

“Native Copper”: Exhibiting Anishinaabe Wealth at the U.S. National Museum – Gustave Lester

How did a three-thousand-pound rock of “native copper”—meaning copper ore found in its pure form—end up in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution? In the early 1840s, the U.S. government facilitated the movement of the Ontonagon Boulder from deep within its resting place in Anishinaabewaki (the homeland of the Anishinaabeg) to well over a thousand miles away in Washington D.C. for public display. But how did this removal occur? And…

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Contemporary Connections, Special Features

From Fort to Casino: The Catawba Nation and the Opposite Carolinas – Stuart Marshall

North and South Carolina continue to be divided about most things, including how to prepare pulled pork. In North Carolina, the vinegar-based style reigns supreme, but mustard flows south of the border. Beyond barbecue, travelers might notice some striking differences on either side of the line—with North Carolina known for its rural beauty and mountain landscapes, and South Carolina for its southern charm, stately mansions, and palmetto trees. Any reader…

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Contemporary Connections, Special Features

The Pig of Knowledge: The Career of a Concept – Dan Richter

The Pig of Knowledge and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS) grew up together. The porcine horizon—as archaeologists might call the Pig’s first appearance in the Center’s material culture—occurred in 1998, the same year in which the former Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies assumed its current name. The porker’s premier was abrupt, and two-fold: The Pig of Knowledge graced both the 1997–1998 fellows’ class memorial tee-shirt and…

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Contemporary Connections, Special Features, Uncategorized

Distributing Representation: Are the Founders’ Ideas Still Useful in the 21st Century? – Robert J. Gough

The issues of the size of the House of Representatives and the apportionment of its members were not settled in 1792 and remain contentious in 2022. In the nearly century-and-a-half between 1790 and 1930, the House grew from 105 to 435 members, and Congress used several different methods to apportion them among the states. Politics always played a role in these decisions, but Congress also became entangled in what mathematicians…

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Contemporary Connections, Special Features

Cancel Culture and Call Out Culture in Salem and Essex County, Massachusetts on the Eve of the American Revolution – Richard Morris

Today, much is made of “cancel culture,” or economically punishing those whose statements, ideas, and behaviors violate the values of various groups. Canceling can include calls for firing individuals who take objectionable stances; boycotting businesses that behave similarly; or, in the case of celebrities, steering clear of their performances. “Call out culture” also condemns offensive language and behaviors but is more often associated with pressure for apologies and reform than…

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Tan cover page of The Soul’s Preparation for Christ. Or, a Treatise of Contrition. Wherein is discovered How God breaks the heart and wounds the Soul, in the conversion of a Sinner to Himself, by Thomas Hooker.
Contemporary Connections, Special Features

The “Protestant Ethic” in a Pandemic – Sarah Pawlicki

The above tweet made me chuckle from my kitchen table, where I’m working from home through the Omicron surge. It’s true that, regardless of COVID-19, I’m still as worried about producing dissertation chapters, syllabi, case studies, and grant applications as ever.   Despite significant differences in place, time, and culture, the abovementioned figurative journal entry lamenting the daily grind of the apocalypse would probably have also resonated with a Puritan hauling…

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Contemporary Connections, Special Features

The Long-Enduring American Fancy for British Monarchy – Vaughn Scribner

For a country like the U.S. that violently divorced itself from the British monarchy almost 250 years ago and still jealously guards its role as the arbiter of “true” democracy, modern America is surely obsessed with the British royal family. We refer to many royals on a first-name basis—Diana, Will and Kate, Harry and Meghan—which suggests some sort of intimacy with these elusive figures. We celebrate others, like Queen Elizabeth…

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Contemporary Connections, Special Features

It’s Corruption All the Way Down – Dylan M. LeBlanc

Most of my historical subjects were corrupt. Slave-owning, slave-trading, and self-dealing government officials on the edges of Britain’s Atlantic empire, they look today like veritable icons of moral decay. Of course, today’s standards don’t matter. Historians aren’t judges of the dead. We can recognize the evils of slavery, the temptations of duplicity, and separate fact from fiction. We seek, however, to explain the driving force of our narratives without making…

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