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The Education Of Joseph Prince: Reading Adolescent Culture In Eighteenth-Century New England, Douglas L. Winiarski

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Among the earliest extant manuscripts composed by a New England adolescent, Prince's commonplace book both confirms and modifies existing studies of the transition from childhood to adulthood in early America. Unlike the night-walking youths who appear in revisionist scholarship, Prince never was haled before the Plymouth County court to answer charges of "frolicking" with his cronies. Instead, this dutiful scion of a wealthy and politically powerful southeastern Massachusetts clan spent most of his free time perusing the books in his father's extensive library. Yet the very act of reading held subversive potential. While his parents sought to hone his religious …