Puritan Daily Life and Concerns

In light of our discussion of Puritans last week take a look at "A Puritan Maiden's Diary" on the Cornell Library website.

This link 1675 diary of a Puritan girl, its author is unknown, appears to begin on her birthday and covers, roughly, a two year period. It was first published in the late 19th century - the link is to the article as it was originally published with text from the diary. Read through the article and text (it's five pages) and then write a paragraph or two about the diary.

What seem to be some of the girl's major concerns? What kind of a "snapshot" of Puritan daily life does it provide? What do we learn about Puritan daily life? How does this account compare to some of your other readings about Puritans and what you learned in lecture about their daily lives and concerns?

American Indians and Europeans in the Old New World

One of our focuses this week in class was to address the way we think of early contact and cultural exchange between Europeans, American Indians, and Africans during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To that end, we watched several clips from The New World (2005) and Pocahontas (1995) and we talked about the way that Facing East From Indian Country asks us to reconsider our approach to encounters between Europeans and American Indians and to consider how Indians “discovered” Europeans. In addition, readings in the Rushforth and Mapp collection included a number of primary source documents that provide accounts of European/Native American relations.

Using one of the film clips we watched in class (the links to them are on Blackboard), the chapters we read last week in Facing East, and Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his journey through Florida to the Southwest during the sixteenth century, discuss the ways that Native Americans and Europeans interacted and were envisioned by us and each other.

This doesn’t need to be a long answer – a paragraph or two will do. Just put together a few thoughts about how we think about early American Indian-European relations (with our 21st century perspective in the films), what Cabeza de Vaca says about his encounters with Native Americans (using specific examples from the text); and what Facing East proposes about how Native Americans discovered Europe.

Introduce Yourself!

This week we had a brief overview of American Indians in the Americas before 1491 (what? 20,000 years of history in about 30 minutes was too much to absorb? Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to have followed all of it!), and a brief intro to Europe in 1492. As I mentioned in class, the main points you need to take away from this are that by the time of contact, American Indians were widely dispersed around the Americas and had unique cultures, languages, and traditions.

This week, we’re set to tackle early contact and European settlement. We’re going to focus in on a much smaller (much, much, much) time frame as we trace some of the initial contacts and struggles colonization created.

As a way of introducing you to the class, and the class blog, I’d like each of you to introduce yourself by creating a list of 10 or so things about yourself. This can range from your major to your hobbies to random facts. One requirement: please do include your name!


10 Things

1.I did my graduate work at The College of William and Mary in Virginia
2.I specialize in nineteenth and twentieth century history and media studies; but, despite this, most of my teaching has been in the colonial and early national periods of American history (William and Mary sits next to Colonial Williamsburg)
3.I also have a strong interest in the way history is presented in popular films and have, in fact, taught a “History by Hollywood” seminar a number of times at The College of William and Mary and Temple University in Philadelphia.
4.I think history matters and can teach us amazing things about our past, our present, and our future.
5.I did my master’s degree at the University of London in England … that’s right- American history in London.
6.I did my bachelor’s degree at the University of California at San Diego. I had a hard time picking a major so I ended up with History, and with minors in Literature and Political Science (and almost one in Third World Studies).
7.I’m a California native and I miss fish tacos in San Diego, Berkeley’s used bookstores, Pacific Ocean sunsets, and the diversified geography of ocean, valleys, and mountains all within a few miles of each other
8.Before I attended graduate school I was a newspaper reporter in California
9.I hate the cold and snow (I know, right? I’m living in Chicago …why?)
10.I’m excited to teach History 181 this semester!
--- SG

Welcome

Welcome to the Winter Quarter 2010 class blog for History 181: America to 1800.

From the class syllabus:

Each week, I’ll post a question about one of the primary sources or a new primary source/question or a film clip/question. During the course of the week, but before our class meets, it is your responsibility to respond AT LEAST ONCE about the document in question.

· This Blog will also be used to post interesting items in the news and as a debriefing site after class discussions (i.e. if students – or the instructor – want to continue a particularly fruitful discussion on the Blog, we may).

· Finally, the course Blog will also be used by me to post additional thoughts and comments about the history we’re covering – and for you to respond if you’re so inclined (encouraged; not required). Students may also submit topics for Blog discussions if there is a particular issue or idea they wish to discuss.

· You MUST e-mail me the e-mail address you want to use to access the blog by January 9^th. The question for Week I will ask you to tell me a few things about yourself (I’ll do the same) to help us adjust to the technology

If you have a suggestion for the blog or an item you'd like to discuss on the blog - just let me know.

For our first week, I'll pose a series of questions about you that I want each of you to answer (by using the "comment" option after my post) as a way for us to get to know each other and familiarize ourselves with blogging. Those questions will be posted by Saturday, January 9th.

In the meantime, please let me know if you have questions or suggestions!

SG