Synopses & Reviews
This anthology of secondary sources portrays the lives of ordinary Americans and examines the diversity of the American people, from the earliest settlement of America to Reconstruction.
The Social Fabric acquaints students with the ways in which important events in the nation's history were reflected in the everyday lives of ordinary people. A wide variety of essays deals with the experiences of men as well as women, Native Americans as well as African-Americans and immigrants, the poor as well as the wealthy. These readings highlight the diversity of Americans' experiences–based on differences in race, ethnicity, and gender–and the way in which those differences have at times led to conflict.
Synopsis
This anthology of secondary sources portrays the lives of ordinary Americans and examines the diversity of the American people, from the earliest settlement of America to Reconstruction.
Table of Contents
(* denotes new reading to this edition)
Contents
Preface
I. COLONIAL AMERICANS.
1. New Ways: Indian and European. From Colin Calloway, New Worlds for All.
2. The Creation of a Slave Society in the Chesapeake. From Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: the First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.
3. Colonial Women . From Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Martha Ballard and Her Girls,” in Work and Labor in Early America; Stephen Innes, Ed.
4. White Captives.* From James Axtell, "The White Indians of Colonial America."
5. The Witchcraft Scare. From John C Miller, This New Man, the American.
II. REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLES.
6. Native American Women—from Princesses to Wenches. From Larry D. Eldridge, ed., Women and Freedom in Early America.
7. German Immigrant Survival Tactics. From Aaron S. Fogelman, Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717-1775.
8. Ordinary Colonists Become Revolutionaries.* From Gary Nash, The Unknown American Revolution.
9. Building an Army. From John E. Ferling, A Wilderness of Miseries: War and Warriors in Early America.
10. Revolutionary Women. From Joan R. Gundersen, To Be Useful to the World: Women in Revolutionary America, 1740-1790.
III. THE TRIALS OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC.
11. Neighborhood and Class in an Industrial Age. From Walter Licht, Industrializing America: The Nineteenth Century.
12. Trail of Tears. From Dale Van Every, Disinherited: The Lost Birthright of the American Indian.
13. The Affectionate Family. From Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life.
14. Getting Rid of Demon Alcohol. From Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers, 1815-1860, Second Edition.
IV. INDUSTRIAL NORTH AND PLANTER SOUTH.
15. The Midwestern Farm. From John M. Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail.
16. The Black Family. From Leslie H. Owens, This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the Old South.
17. Canal Workers and Their World.* From Peter Way, Common Labour.
18. Urban Problems. From Michael Feldberg, The Turbulent Era: Riot and Disorder in Jacksonian America.
V. WESTERN EXPANSION AND CIVIL WAR.
19. The Way West. From John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-1860.
20. Early Texans—the Common Ground Between Anglos and Tejanos in Republican Texas. From Jesus F. de la Teja, “Discovering the Tejano Community of 'Early' Texas”.
21. Why Soldiers Went to War. From James M. McPherson, What They Fought For, 1861-1865.
22. When the Yankees Came. From Stephen V. Ash, When the Yankees Came: Conflict and Chaos in the Occupied South, 1861-1865.
23. Political Violence During Reconstruction. From Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., Pistols and Politics.