For Monday, April 9

Read: in Hawke:

Chapter 18, The Colonial Family                                           pp. 199-208

We'll look not only at the family when it "works" but when it doesn't: at the stresses which hit at the fabric of the family, and at the reasons why so much energy went into maintaining family units.
 

A good secondary source on the historiography of family studies in Colonial America is Religion, Women and the Family in Colonial America  by Christine Leigh Heyman.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is conducting extensive research on the family in Colonial America. Some of their conclusions can be found at
http://www.history.org/life/family/essay.htm

William Penn gives one a feel for the nature of family life in his letter to his wife and children, written in 1682, when he was preparing for a sea voyage without them. Note especially the combination of religious and pragmatic sentiments the letter contains. Download and bring to class.

A Boston Minister, Benjamin Wadsworth,  chimes in with his views in "About Duties of Wives and Husbands".  Download and Bring to Class.

Benjamin Franklin was hardly a Puritan.  Read his advice to a friend with "urges". Might as well download and bring this one, too.
 
 

For Wednesday, April 11

Bring with you a typed page with
1.  The formal title of your project
2.  a one to two paragraph summary of that topic
3.  E-mail me a second version of this to my home e-mail address: mrhs@tiac.net

No class... Happy Passover/Easter Holiday.