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Religious Society And The Family In Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1630 To 1740, Mary Macmanus Ramsbottom

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

By the early seventeenth century, English dissenters had developed a vital tradition of voluntary religious exercise operating within the shadow of the established church. Those who immigrated faced a new world of possibilities for public expression of religious commitment. How three generations of New Englanders altered and adapted these habits of religious sociability is the subject of this study.

The dissertation examines religious culture in Charlestown, Massachusetts through the history of three institutions: the family, the private devotional society, and the local church. The focus throughout is on lay religiosity and the interrelation of "private" and "public" religious activities. Church …