Contested Commonwealths: Essays in American History

383 Pages·2011·3.91 MB·English

by  William A. Pencak

Contested
Commonwealths
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Studies in Eighteenth-Century America and the Atlantic World
cosponsored by
The Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute for
Eighteenth-Century Studies, Lehigh University
General Editor: Scott Paul Gordon, Lehigh University
Publishing rich, innovative scholarship that extends and enlarges the
field of early American studies, Studies in Eighteenth-Century America and
the Atlantic World embraces interdisciplinary work in eighteenth-century
transatlantic literature, history, visual arts, material culture, religion,
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Sarah Fatherly, Gentlewomen and Learned Ladies: Women and Elite Families
in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia
Jewel A. Smith, Music, Women, and Pianos: The Moravian Young Ladies’
Seminary in Antebellum Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1815–1860)
Jean R. Soderlund and Catherine S. Parzynski, eds., Backcountry Crucibles:
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Charles K. Jones, Francis Johnson (1792–1844): Chronicle of a Black Musician
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Steven Craig Harper, Promised Land: Penn’s Holy Experiment, The Walking
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William A. Pencak, Contested Commonwealths: Essays in American History
http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpress
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Contested
Commonwealths
Essays in American History
William A. Pencak
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bethlehem
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Published by Lehigh University Press
Co-published with The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2011 by William A. Pencak
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pencak, William, 1951–
Contested commonwealths : essays in American history / William A. Pencak.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-61146-083-4 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61146-084-1 (electronic)
1. United States—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. 2. United States—
History—Revolution, 1775–1783. 3. Massachusetts—History—Colonial period, ca.
1600–1775. 4. Massachusetts—History—Revolution, 1775–1783. 5. Boston (Mass.)—
History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775. 6. Boston (Mass.)—History—Revolution,
1775–1783. I. Title.
E195.P46 2011
973.2—dc23
2011024921
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction xi
Part I. Communities
1 The Knowles Riot and the Crisis of the 1740s in Massachusetts
with John Lax 3
2 Metropolitan Boston Before the American Revolution: An Urban
Interpretation of the Imperial Crisis with Ralph J. Crandall 53
3 The Social Structure of Revolutionary Boston: Evidence from the
Great Fire of 1760 77
4 Play as Prelude to Revolution: Boston, 1765–1776 91
5 “The Fine Theoretic Government of Massachusetts is Prostrated
to the Earth”: The Response to Shays’s Rebellion Reconsidered 121
Part II. People
6 Politics and Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Almanacs:
Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard and Nathaniel Ames, Sr.’s
An Astronomical Diary 157
7 The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: Benjamin Franklin,
George Whitefield, the Dancing School, and a Defense of the
“Meaner Sort” 197
8 John Adams and His Contemporaries 213
9 The Extended Presidency of George Washington, 1775–1797 247
10 Peter Oliver (1713–1791), Chief Justice of the Massachusetts
Superior Court 273
v
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vi Contents
Part III. Ideas
11 From Racket to Natural Law: The Permutation of Smuggling
into Free Trade 299
12 “The Great War for the Empire” Reconsidered as a Cause of
the American Revolution 313
13 The Civil War Did Not Take Place 327
Index 347
About the Author 367
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Acknowledgments
I
thank,
Scott Gordon, the very patient editor of the book series published by the
Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute and Lehigh University Press, for allowing
me the freedom and time to select and revise my essays on American history
for this collection.
Associate editor Laura Grzybowski and proofreader Dana Foote, for
their prompt, careful, and courteous reading of the text.
Also the reader for Lehigh University Press, who was both incisive and
sympathetic, exactly what every author hopes for.
My teachers, especially Florence Tropper, Marc Haken, Maurice Passy,
Vincent Chiarello, Helen Gottlieb, Adelaide Santor, George Pleven, William
Leuchtenburg, Alden Vaughan, Jack P. Greene, Jack Wilson, John Murrin,
and, most especially, Chilton Williamson, Sr.
My colleagues, especially John Lax and Ralph J. Crandall, who partici-
pated in writing two of these essays with me, and my students.
My parents, Harriett and Charles, for always providing all the love and
financial support I’ve needed to do my work.
My entire family.
Kacey, Molly, Nicolai, Happy Feet, Bella, Bentley, and Shadow, for
their unconditional love.
I dedicate this book to Vincent Andrassy, for the great happiness he has
given me, now for nine years, and I hope forever.
vii
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viii Acknowledgments
I also thank the following publishers and people for their permission to
reprint, and assistance in reprinting, the items included here:
Joyce Chaplin, Arthur Patton-Hock, and the Charles Warren Center,
Harvard University: (with John Lax) “The Knowles Riot and the Crisis of
the 1740s in Massachusetts,” Perspectives in American History, 10 (1976),
163–214.
MIT Press: “The Social Structure of Revolutionary Boston: Evidence From
the Great Fire of 1760 Records,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 8 (1979),
168–79.
Adele Barbato and the Bostonian Society: (with Ralph Crandall) “Metropoli-
tan Boston Before the American Revolution: An Urban Interpretation of the
Imperial Crisis,” Bostonian Society Proceedings (1977–1983), 57–79.
Sandy Thatcher, Penn State University Press: “Play as Prelude to Revolu-
tion: Boston, 1765–1776,” in William Pencak, Matthew Dennis, and Simon
Newman, eds., Riot and Revelry in Early America (University Park: Penn State
Press, 2002), 126–55.
John Tyler and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts: “‘The Fine Theoretic
Government of Massachusetts is Prostrated to the Earth’: The Response to
Shays’ Rebellion Reconsidered” in Frederick Allis and Robert Gross, ed., In
Debt to Shays (Boston: Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts,
volume 65, 1991), 121–44, 353–58.
MIT Press and the New England Quarterly: “Samuel Adams and Shays’s
Rebellion,” New England Quarterly, 62 (1989), 63–74.
Tamara Gaskell and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: “Politics and
Ideology in Poor Richard’s Almanack,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and
Biography, 116 (1992), 183–211.
Marla Dodge, Editor, Historical Journal of Massachusetts: “Nathaniel Ames,
Sr., and the Political Culture of Provincial New England,” Historical Journal
of Massachusetts 22 (Summer 1994), 141–58.
Proteus: A Journal of Ideas (Shippensburg University): “The Beginning of a
Beautiful Friendship: Franklin, Whitefield, the Dancing School Blockheads,
and a Defense of the Public Sphere,” Proteus (2002), 45–50.
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Acknowledgments ix
The Massachusetts Historical Society: “John Adams and the Massachusetts
Provincial Elite,” in Richard Ryerson, ed., John Adams and the Early Republic
(Boston: The Massachusetts Historical Society, 2001), 42–71.
Anne C. Peters and the Social Law Library, Boston, Massachusetts: “Chief
Justice Peter Oliver,” Massachusetts Legal History, 2006, 1–25. Images: Social
Law Library and Digital Images Resources Department, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.
Chris Myers and Peter Lang Publishing: “From Racket to Natural Law:
The Permutation of Smuggling into Free Trade,” in Conscience, Consensus, &
Crossroads in Law: Eighth Round Table on Law and Semiotics, Roberta Kevel-
son, ed. (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 245–60.
The Semiotic Society of America: “The Civil War Did Not Take Place,”
Presidential Address to Semiotic Society of America, 2000, American Journal
of Semiotics, 17:2 (2001), 7–29.
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