Childhood in Puritan New England

Childhood in Puritan New England

 

Title: The Primary Materials of History: Childhood in Puritan New England

Pages 24-33

This piece was made to persuade the audience to examine their childhood and compare and contrast it with the way Puritans were raised. Not only would the audience see differences, but it is also meant to have the audience ask questions of themselves and dig further into the Puritan way of life outside of only children. To make the selection easier to read, it was broken up into two different sections: Portraits and Written Evidence.

Portraits

It was really interesting to see portraits of Puritan Children and how they differ from portraits taken today. Obviously, they didn’t have any cameras to use, so artists would paint their likeness. We all like to look nice for our photos, so normally we dress up. Same was true for Puritans. We normally like to have a pleasant expression on our face, such as smiling; however, Puritans wanted their children to specifically not smile. The author even asks us to think about why this would be. I believe it’s because “having fun” was almost considered a sin during this time period for this cultural group. If you were too happy, you were probably sinning and needed to confess. Therefore, in order to portray that you were not sinning, your portrait was taken without a smile on your face. This also might portray that their society wasn’t focused on material happiness but inner, private happiness.

 

Written Evidence

I found it really interesting to read how well the children of this era wrote, some even better than adults I know. Absolutely, this 12 year old writes better than any 12 year old I know. Also, it makes me wonder why he would be writing to his father? They probably live together, so why not just talk to him? Since the subject matter deals with God, he probably did something he wasn’t supposed to do and was therefore forced to write a letter to his father to repent.

The Court Records really surprised me. “If any child[ren] above sixteen years old and of sufficient understanding shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of such children, or so provoked them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from death or maiming…” PUT TO DEATH?? For saying something bad about your parents??? I would be killed by now, that’s for sure. I remember there was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the crew visited a planet that no matter what law you broke, you were put to death. The planet was insanely happy all the time and had absolutely no crime, which is simply unheard of in human society. So when Wesley Crusher decided he wanted to walk on the grass and had no idea it was a law, he was then sentenced to death. This was the main conflict of this episode and had to be resolved through compromise between the two societies. My guess is that this was the same principal for the Puritans. “If we just threaten death, then they won’t commit the crime.” Seems really harsh for us, but the author said that the sentence was never served, so they must have been doing something right.

The Great Awakening: A Brief History with Documents

The Great Awakening: A Brief History with Documents

Thomas S. Kidd

Pages 43-73

 

This reading was a culmination of primary source documents from the 1730s to the 1740s regarding different people’s views of religion. The documents included journals, ads, sermons, declarations, pictures, and diaries. Kidd put together these documents to help the reader come to their own conclusions about religion in the 1730s and 1740s to the common people and to the nobles.

I feel as if most people during this time period felt that God didn’t inherently love everyone and no one was ever worthy of his love because they were so filled with sin. In George Whitefield’s journal, he commented to the reader: You lied, not unto man, but unto God.” Others merely begin to question their faith. “How can we be led by the Spirit or have Joy in the Holy Ghost, without some sensible Perceptions of it!” (Josiah Smith) In Yale College’s “The Declaration of the Rector and Tutors”, I was particularly surprised by, “Another Principle which you have advanced, is, That all unconverted Ministers are half Beasts and half Devils, and can no more be the Means of any Man’s Conversion, than a dead Man can beget a living Child.” So not only were people questioning their faith, they completely denounced other’s faiths. I find this completely hypocritical; in fact, I find most of this time period hypocritical. So many people would argue with other people, claiming that they know the absolute truth in everything, even if other people provided them with evidence to the contrary. While reading these documents, I couldn’t help but think of watching “Luther” a film about Martin Luther becoming a Monk and a heretic. Watching it nowadays, we all know that he brought up some excellent points and was right about many things, especially indulgences. To us, the idea that someone could absolve themselves of sins or free their ancestors from purgatory because they paid money to someone is completely absurd. To us, we believe that you must confess your sins, show repentance, apologize, etc. to help wash away your sins. When Luther posted his “Truths” he genuinely thought that he was correct and that the Church was not only wrong, but they were scamming people, committing sin themselves in the name of the Church. Luther was the first person to show that the Church was the Pot calling the Kettle black. The Church preyed on those who thought they were damned. “What shall I do to be saved?” “Natural Men, not having true Love to Christ and the Souls of their Fellow-Creatures, hence their Discourses are cold and sapless, and as it were freeze between their Lips! And not being sent of GOD, they want that divine Authority, with which the faithful Ambassadors of Christ are clothed, who herein resemble their blessed Master [Jesus].” This was a time of people stepping out of the norm, and if these people didn’t make the changes they did, who knows where we would be today? It’s weird to think of what my family might have believed if we had been around during that time. Who knows, maybe even I would have been paying indulgences to free my Great Grandmother from purgatory.

Chapter 2: The Cloister

The Cloister pages 26-32. 

 

This part of the chapter begins with descriptions of fasting and Lent performed by Martin Luther. Martin Luther said he enjoyed Lent even more than Easter because of his vigils and prayers to make up for his sins. The historians of Martin Luther believe because he liked Lent so much, he must have sinned greatly.

I personally think it’s really interesting to think that Martin Luther, a figure that everyone knows and looks up to for making his mark on history, could have been a big sinner. I don’t think of my priest as sinning a lot, only every now and then. I mean, shouldn’t they be close to perfect? They’re our role models to not sin. So if they sin all the time, what are we to do? Just go to confession? Confession does cleanse our souls, but it’s not meant to be an excuse for us to sin all we want to. So if these are the rules that govern us, what are the rules that govern our priests? What are the rules that governed Martin Luther? What made him think that just by fasting for “three days without a crumb” he can wipe away all his sin? “Sins must be accounted for one by one.” So when did he account for all his sins? One every day, hour, minute?

I also find it interesting to think of someone basically torturing themselves. When’s the last time any of us even went one whole day without eating anything? When is the last time during winter any of us slept without a blanket or heating of some sort? Also, when is the last time any of us had the pride to say “I have done nothing wrong today”? Just today I went to go see a movie at the Palladium, and one of the guys on the golf cart gave me a ride from my car to the front. It was the first time this ever happened to me, and I was taken a bit aback, so much so that I didn’t even think if a tip was expected. I didn’t even think about it until it was too late, and it’s 11 pm, a few hours after the incident, and I still feel sorry. I know it may seem silly, it’s not like he carried my bags or helped me up and out of the cart, but he did give me a ride. Maybe he works off of tips and I stiffed him. I don’t know. So, I know I sure can’t say “I have done nothing wrong today.” Even if it’s not something physical, if it’s mental, it’s still wrong. We’ve all had those moments where we’ve thought mean and ill things about someone else. Most of the time, I’ll try to stop myself from thinking these thoughts, but when they emerge, I try to think of something else pleasant, often times about the person in question. Luther said, “I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I.” If we all tried a little harder every day to stick closely to our “rules of order” we can prevent squabbles, fights, and even wars.

 We should use other’s previous thoughts and actions to help guide the way. I know this may not seem like an analysis of history, but to me what we think about ourselves and our actions today will become history tomorrow.

Introduction

Alexandra Fields

 

 

What you should know about me

I'm an 18 year old woman who absolutely loves life, family, friends, and (believe it or not) school and work. My passion is theatre and performing arts which leads to my dream of becoming a professional actress. I've been working since I was 14. I can't imagine not working, not learning, and not being involved in some sort of performing arts. Along with theatre, I enjoy modelling (no high fashion, because I'm too short) for things like photo shoots and hair shows. When I'm not super busy (which is pretty much never), I enjoy being with my family, and my adorable puppies: Buster (the yellow lab mix with a red tick hound, who is technically my sister-Lauren) and Coco (the poodle, who is technically mine). Oh, and they're much bigger now than in these pictures. 

 

And Now for History

I would define History as the retelling of the past. None of us can ever know if our "Facts" are 100% correct about anything, even about ourselves, and especially the past and history. Think about those memories you have about a time you met someone, your first kiss, and how many times you've thought about that one moment. When you repeatedly brought up this event in your mind, how many times did it change? I know for me, it's pretty much every time. Everyone knows about the telephone game, but no one really thinks that it happens with themselves. I've always had a difficult time learning history. It's hard for me to relate to it, honestly, and I just plain enjoy math, science, and literature more. Math and science I enjoy because you can get to an answer, or at least follow the right path. Literature, you just pick an opinion and stick to it. Easy enough. History, everyone thinks they are right, except for you. Most teachers in high school claimed to know everything. They don't. They weren't there. I love how college professors admit to not knowing everything and admit that even they have a personal bias. The most we can ever hope to achieve is to be presented or present the most true facts that we can about this thing we call history. I also have learned that for myself, I don't really like reading history textbooks. There are other textbooks I actually do like reading, just not history because they claim to know it all and be right. If I'm going to read about history, I prefer it to be intentionally fictional in nature while telling some historical data, then I at least know it's not perfect but trying to tell a story. I also prefer having someone just talking to me about history, like in museums or people telling me what they believe about a certain event. In this context, I actually find it more believable because they know they're not telling the 100% truth. When I first read the portion of the textbook, I wasn't really looking for instances where I could tell "this is an opinion" because I just believe a lot of textbooks are opinions. My HIS 1053 teacher today was telling us about a Mississippi textbook from the 1950s or so that said that most slaves were treated as princes. Ok, some were, but not enough to qualify as most. Therefore=opinion. But this is something that most of us have come to agree on. There are enough primary sources that show us otherwise. However, there are still many events that don't have that much documentation to prove our main "Fact" to be false, so we believe it. To comment on the statement: "History is an argument" I completely agree. Everyone is just trying to prove themselves right and everyone else wrong, even if they are wrong themselves. Historians I would qualify as being very prideful, and because of this pride, they are unwilling to compromise themselves for the truth. I must say now that there are some historians that admit to not knowing everything, aren't prideful, and do compromise themselves. This is simply my opinion. I think now that I've realized this, I might begin to enjoy history more, but probably only if I hear it told as just a story.