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The Best Poor Man's Country?: William Penn, Quakers, And Unfree Labor In Atlantic Pennsylvania, Peter B. Kotowski
The Best Poor Man's Country?: William Penn, Quakers, And Unfree Labor In Atlantic Pennsylvania, Peter B. Kotowski
Dissertations
William Penn’s writings famously emphasized notions of egalitarianism, just governance, and moderation in economic pursuits. Twentieth-century scholars took Penn’s rhetoric at his word and interpreted colonial Pennsylvania as nothing less than “the best poor man’s country,” as reflected in the title of one of the most popular histories of the colony. They also imagined a world where all men had access to economic opportunity and lived free from the barbarity endemic to Atlantic world colonies. Despite this halcyon vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, the reality was the opposite: a colony where religious convictions justified what we today (and radicals then) …
Reviving His Work: Social Isolation, Religious Fervor And Reform In The Burned Over District Of Western New York, 1790-1860, Patricia Lewis Noel
Reviving His Work: Social Isolation, Religious Fervor And Reform In The Burned Over District Of Western New York, 1790-1860, Patricia Lewis Noel
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis examines revivalism and reform movements in rural areas of western New York. The bulk of literature on this region in the Second Great Awakening concentrates on middle class, urban people. This thesis argues that revivalism and evangelical fervor was carried to rural portions of the region by migrants from western New England. Evangelical Christianity and revivalism provided emotion succor for rural people grappling with negative social conditions, such as isolation, poverty, crop failure and alcoholism, in the New York frontier. Religious adherence became especially important for women, who were more isolated than men. Religious adherence and revivalism allowed …