early american culture

Opportunity and Identity

Early American Culture

Colonies thriving – in part due to the Navigation acts.

Cheap land, lots of resources

Anthology Pg 68 – Benjamin Franklin

Land, Rights, and Wealth

By forcing Native Americans to hand over their claims to large tracts of land

- land became plentiful. As opposed to England where less then 5% of the population owned land.

Indian Removal

With Land came what?

Right to vote!

Do we have classes in America?

HighMiddleLow

Class system

Women preformed many of the duties around the house/farm.

- Made soap, candles, churned butter, cooked, made clothing, farmed, took care of animals, bartered. - little rights – essentially everything was males property. - Role in the church? Government?

Roles in the economy

Did a lot of work around the house.Children would become apprentices around

your age. 11-14.

Essentially learned from an expert- and worked.

Why were many children taught to read?Usually only the wealthy learned writing and

arithmetic. Literacy higher in Colonies than in EnglandHow might this play a role in unifying

colonies? - T Paine!

- Ben Franklin

Schooling and the Growth of Literacy

Poor Richards Almanack by Ben FranklinPg 53-60The Sovereignty and Goodness of God by

Mary Rowlandson (prior to Salem witch trials)

Pg 69

Newspapers/ Books

1730’s-40’s – religious movement.

Puritan decline?People leaving their religions, churches

breaking off and forming others.Lots of growth to Protestant religions.

The Great Awakening

Jonathan Edwards

George Whitefield

Both big names in the Great Awakening – priests, speakers…

Great awakening continued

Emphasized reason and science.

John Locke

Ben Franklin

The Enlightenment

Natural rights – today “Human Rights”

“Reason, teaches all who consult it, that being equal and independent, no one ought harm another in his life, liberty, health, and property.”

If government fails to protect those natural rights, the people have the right to change it.

RousseauHobbes

John Locke

Challenged the idea that a king had the God-given right to rule

Ones power came from the consent of the governed

John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes