Blood Revenge: Family Honor, Mediation and Outcasting

Book Description

From black sorcerers' client-based practices in the antebellum South to the postmodern revival of hoodoo and its tandem spiritual supply stores, the supernatural has been a key component of the African American experience. Jeffrey E. Anderson unfolds a fascinating story as he traces the origins and evolution of conjuring practices across the centuries. What began as a mixture of African, European, and Native American influences within slave communities finds expression today in a multi-million-dollar business.

Though some may see the study of conjure as a perpetuation of old stereotypes that depict blacks as slaves to superstition, the truth, Anderson notes, is far more complex. Drawing on folklore, fiction and nonfiction, music, art, and oral interviews, he explores various portrayals of the conjurer—backward buffoon, rebel against authority, and symbol of racial pride. He also examines the actual work performed by conjurers, including the use of pharmacologically active herbs to treat illness, psychology to ease mental ailments, fear to bring about the death of enemies and acquittals at trials, and advice to encourage clients to succeed on their own.

Conjure's ability to merge supernaturalism and religion—along with a widespread belief in, fear of, or respect for conjure's effectiveness—has made it a force across generations, Anderson shows, and not only among blacks. New Age spiritualism, Afro-Caribbean syncretic faiths, and modern psychological understandings of magic have all contributed to a recent revival of conjure.

By critically examining the many influences that have shaped conjure over time, Anderson effectively redefines magic as a cultural power, one that has profoundly touched the arts, black Christianity, and American society overall.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent research.......2007-01-04

This book is great for people interested in the deep-rooted evolution of Conjure in America. Besides its material of historical interest that reaches back into old Africa, it has some some practical material that the reader can piece together; this isn't a how-to book. It is an excellent resource - I found several other books of interest through it - and it is written in a sympathetic and intelligent manner. It is definitely worth the purchase if you are interested in the whole matter of Conjure.

Tracing the evolution of rootwork. Great stuff!.......2006-05-08

A thorough, and fascinating, exploration of a little-known facet of African-American history and culture. For both the history buff and the working magician, this is a page-turner. Chock-full of historical information, yet very easy to read.

A couple of tidbits to whet your appetite:

*Zora Neale Hurston's supposedly dubious African-style intiations can be traced to secret-society initiations of the Mande and Krobo tribes

*Spiritual-supply companies often recruited sales agents through churches such as the Church of God in Christ

*"Many root doctors practicing today have become millionaires"

I'm one of those people who places a Post-It at each really interesting datum. My copy of _Conjure In African American Society_ has one on almost every page. I'm just sayin'.

The Conjure Reference Book of All Time!.......2006-04-20

This is a fabulously compiled book chocked full of every significant reference to conjure that is or was available. For those interested in getting accurate knowledge of African American conjure and all things related to it, this is the book to have in your library. I go to this book first when looking for clarifycation and direction. Jeff Anderson has worked very hard to provide a truthful, complete picture of conjure from the beginning to present day. A must have for any serious student of folk lore, folk magic and folk medicine. Its a rootworkers dream reference book...Thank you Jeff! -Todomojo

Great Book.......2006-02-06

Insightful! A must read for anyone who is interested in African American spirituality and history.

Quakers and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley

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An insightful study of early domesticity in American life
Quaker Origins of U.S. Ideal of Family Life

Quakers and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley
Barry Levy
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0195049764

Book Description

This brilliant study shows the pivotal role the Quakers played in the origins and development of America's family ideology. Levy argues that the Quakers brought a new vision of family and social life to America--one that contrasted sharply with the harsh, formal world of the New England Puritans. The Quakers stressed affection, friendship and hospitality, the importance of women in the home, and the value of self-disciplined, non-coercive childrearing. This book explains how and why the Quakers have had such a profound cultural impact on America and what the Quakers' experience with their own radical family system tells us about American families.

Customer Reviews:

An insightful study of early domesticity in American life.......2007-05-25

Exploring, in detail, the evolution of Quaker cohorts from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, Levy produces a thorough and novel study of early Anglo-American culture in eastern Pennsylvania. His premise seeks to unravel traditional arguments, which advance the belief that New England served as the primary model, and the origin, for the modern American household. Levy convincingly argues that domestic systems developed through the Quaker families, and not New Englanders, who emigrated from northwestern England. There practices, he contends, shaped the modern American familial landscape and solidified the domestic household. The study, according to Levy, "of Quaker Farmers in the Delaware Valley is chiefly the study of the origins of an influential form of domesticity in American life." (21)

The opening chapters detail the subtle, but important, distinctions between Puritans and Quakers. The former, according to Levy, focused on patriarchy and institutions while the latter emphasized the importance of women in the household, child rearing, and "sanctifying human relations and domestic arraignments in households and meetings."(50) Levy continues to develop the aforementioned arguments throughout his work, and weaves a cohesive, but sometimes dense, narrative that adequately ties Quaker family practices to those adopted by American households today.

Most interesting is Levy's discussion of land in the Quaker community, which focused on the distribution of land to Quakers children, especially their sons. According to the author, about "three hundred acres would seem to ensure to their children's households protection from `the world' and enough peace to enjoy and exemplify the `Truth.'" (137) In a somewhat whimsical follow- up, the author noted that "Puritan farmers left land and not advice." (151) The importance of land in early Quaker culture underscores the national satisfaction that American contemporaries enjoy in land ownership. The author eloquently ties the aforementioned historical landscapes together, and provides a solid argument that Quaker's at least, in some fashion, molded American interest in private land ownership.

Another fascinating aspect of this work is Levy's careful attention to the role of females in Quaker communities. According to the author, women provided a pivotal familial dynamic which was central to the progression of Quakerism. In short, he noted that the Quaker social order "needed expert, hard- working female vessels of seemingly meek purity to embody and communicate `holy conversation' in intimate and public relations." (221) The evidence presented by the author is compelling, that Quaker woman shaped the nuclear family, and thus shaped contemporary American households.

The illustrations in the work supplement, and enhance the author's thematic concentration on Quaker domesticity, especially the oil and canvas sketches by Edward Hicks and Thomas Hillborn. The statistics, while adequate, are less supportive to the author's conclusion and their placement, along with the footnotes, at the end of the work prove to be a minor distraction to the reader.

This work is appropriate for both the colonial novices and experts, and those who have an appreciation for genealogical and religious studies. A really well written and well argued work that lends credence to the hypothesis that the modern American household was shaped more by the Quakers than the Puritans.

Quaker Origins of U.S. Ideal of Family Life.......2001-11-19

First rate social history.

In spite of the mid-eighteenth-century crisis and subsequent decline of Quakerism in Pennsylvania after the American Revolution, the importance of domesticity in the lives of the Pennsylvania Quakers was fundamental to all other aspects of Quaker society, and has had a far-reaching impact on American family life well beyond the colonial era. Quakers (as opposed to New England Puritan emphasis on patriarchy, or the importance of public order and display for the Anglicans) intentionally created the model for the "modern" American family ideal of domesticity for the new republic. While this child-centered, economically and morally self-sufficient model thrived in Pennsylvania from 1681 until the 1750s, its influence extended well beyond the eastern seaboard colonies and the eighteenth century. It became the model for the later and larger national expansion of the American republic.

Quaker domesticity shaped Pennsylvania's tendencies towards pluralism and republicanism. But it is ironic that the universalization of the Quaker family model coincided with the decline of Quakerism and the rise of a secular republican ideology lauded by various Enlightenment philosophes. "While the separation of church and state was the dominant trend in Anglo-American society, the Quakers actually increased the conflation of Quaker church and Pennsylvania state during the eighteenth century" (p. 155). While political Whigs held Quakers and their pacifism in contempt during the American Revolution, the fall of Quaker political hegemony in Pennsylvania led to a correlation between the private virtue embodied in their form of family life, and the non-authoritarian public virtue of republican political ideology. Pennsylvania's commercial economy and "liberal" society were touted as the model for the new American republic, and it was hoped that it would spread to both New England and the South. In essence, Quaker family ideals were distilled into a source for American culture in general. "The Pennsylvania Quakers originated and established the institution of the morally self-sufficient household in American society" (p. 22). Hence, the modern, Western, child-centered, conjugal, nuclear family as idealized and desperately needed today.

My 4 instead of 5 star rating (it rates a 4.5) is based on the
minor quibble that Levy ignores the downsides of 18th century Quaker family life, and does not explain why if everything was so nurturing and "free," so many Quaker children left the fold and out-married non-Quakers, and hence were banished from the Society of Friends.

Book Description

"Poor Joshua!" lamented Justice Harry Blackmun in his famous dissent. "Victim of repeated attacks by an irresponsible, bullying, obviously cowardly, and intemperate father, and abandoned by respondents who placed him in a dangerous predicament and who knew or learned what was going on, and yet did essentially nothing. . . ." Even so, the Supreme Court, by a 6-to-3 margin, absolved Wisconsin officials of any negligence in a case that had left a young child profoundly damaged for the rest of his life.

Does the Constitution protect children from violent parents? As Lynne Curry shows, that was the central question at issue when Melody DeShaney initially sued Wisconsin for failing to protect her battered son Joshua from her estranged husband, thus violating her son's constitutional right to due process. The resulting case, DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989), was a highly emotional one pitting the family against the state and challenging our views on domestic relations, child abuse, and the responsibilities-and limits-of state action regarding the private lives of citizens.

The Supreme Court's controversial decision ruled that the Constitution was intended to limit state action rather than oblige the state to interfere in private affairs. It viewed the Due Process Clause as a limitation on the state's power to act, not a guarantee of safety and security, not even for children who depend on the state for their survival. In this first book-length analysis of the case, Curry helps readers understand how considerations of "what should be" are not always reflected in legal reasoning.

Curry brings to light details that have been ignored or neglected and covers both the criminal and civil proceedings to retell a story that still shocks. Drawing on legal briefs and social work case files, she reviews the legal machinations of the state and includes personal stories of key actors: family members, social workers, police officers, child advocates, and opposing attorneys. She then clearly analyzes the majority and dissenting opinions from the Court, as well as reactions from the court of public opinion.

Joshua DeShaney depended on the state for protection but found no satisfaction in the courts when the state failed him. The DeShaney Case offers a much-needed perspective on the dilemmas his predicament posed for our legal system and fresh insight into our ambivalent views of the role that the state should play in our daily lives.

This book is part of the Landmark Law Cases and American Society series.

Customer Reviews:

Well written account of a tragic case........2007-06-28

I am ashamed to say that I know a few of the people involved in this horrible case. This book is written in a journalistic style, the author depicts the facts with little emotion. She doesn't need to sensationalize the facts, they speak for themselves. I do think the book would've been more powerful if she'd included pictures of Joshua and his abusive father. And the social worker involved. I changed my opinion of some Supreme Court justices after reading this book. The fact that our local social worker's lack of action resulted in leaving an innocent child severely retarded (with half a brain) is so appalling. Someone should be accountable. No one was. Our local police and our local newspaper are also accountable for their support of the errant social worker. "Poor Joshua" and shame on you, the State of Wisconsin and it's social workers.

The Corporation as Family: The Gendering of Corporate Welfare, 1890-1930 (Luther Hartwell Hodges Series on Business, Society, and the State)

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The Corporation as Family: The Gendering of Corporate Welfare, 1890-1930 (Luther Hartwell Hodges Series on Business, Society, and the State)
Nikki Mandell
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Labor Policy | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0807853518
Release Date: 2001-12-02

Book Description

The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable growth of corporate welfare programs in American industry. By the mid-1920s, 80 percent of the nation's largest companies--firms including DuPont, International Harvester, and Metropolitan Life Insurance--engaged in some form of welfare work. Programs were implemented to achieve goals that ranged from improving basic workplace conditions, to providing educational, recreational, and social opportunities for workers and their families, to establishing savings and insurance plans.

Employing the critical lens of gender analysis, Nikki Mandell offers an innovative perspective on the development of corporate welfare. She argues that its advocates sought to build a new relationship between labor and management by recasting the modern corporation as a Victorian family. Employers assumed the authoritative position of fathers, assigned their employees the subordinate role of children, and hired male and female welfare managers to act as "corporate mothers" charged with creating a harmonious household. But internal conflict and external pressures weakened the corporate welfare system, and it eventually gave way to a system of personnel management and employee representation. With the abandonment of the familial model, the form of corporate welfare changed; but, as Mandell demonstrates, its content left an enduring legacy for modern industrial relations.

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Calculations are only as good as your numbers

Pants on fire?

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.

Very Interesting

History as Science Fiction

History: Fiction or Science? Dating methods as offered by mathematical statistics. Eclipses and zodiacs. Chronology Vol.I
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Delamere Resources
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)

History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III

Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History And Legends, Unearthed And Explored

Before the Pharaohs: Egypt's Mysterious Prehistory

They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies

ASIN: 2913621074
Release Date: 2007-03-19

Product Description

History: Fiction or Science? is the most explosive tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by solid scientific data. The book is well-illustrated, contains over 446 graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays, which never cease to amaze the reader. Eminent mathematician proves that: Jesus Christ was born in 1153 and crucified in 1186 The Old Testament refers to mediaeval events. Apocalypse was written after 1486. Does this sound uncanny? This version of events is substantiated by hard facts and logic - validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources - to a greater extent than everything you may have read and heard about history before. The dominating historical discourse in its current state was essentially crafted in the XVI century from a rather contradictory jumble of sources such as innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts whose originals had vanished in the Dark Ages and the allegedly irrefutable proof offered by late mediaeval astronomers, resting upon the power of ecclesial authorities. Nearly all of its components are blatantly untrue! For some of us, it shall possibly be quite disturbing to see the magnificent edifice of classical history to turn into an ominous simulacrum brooding over the snake pit of mediaeval politics. Twice so, in fact: the first seeing the legendary millenarian dust on the ancient marble turn into a mere layer of dirt - one that meticulous unprejudiced research can eventually remove. The second, and greater, attack of unease comes with the awareness of just how many areas of human knowledge still trust the three elephants of the consensual chronology to support them. Nothing can remedy that except for an individual chronological revolution happening in the minds of a large enough number of people.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society

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This book is AWFUL
Book Review by Charles Michael Farley
Founding Mothers & Fathers
Mary Beth Does Again!

Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society
Mary Beth Norton
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

History | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0679749772
Release Date: 1997-07-29

Amazon.com

Founding Mothers & Fathers is a scholarly study of the responsibilities and rewards New World colonists assigned to adults solely on the basis of gender. Historian Mary Beth Norton asserts that a changing world-view caused the limited power wielded by a handful of early colonial women to trickle away by the time the American Constitution was framed. Since nearly every moment of daily life was subject to intense scrutiny by the entire community, the court records and other public documents Norton diligently combed to make her case are anything but dull, and the offenses and punishments meted out speak loudly to the issues of gendered power.

Crystallizing the inflexibility of gender roles in the American colonies is the tale of a servant known as Thomasine or Thomas Hall, alternately. Raised for two decades as a girl, Hall later switched several times between the clothes and roles of a man and those of a woman. Although outraged townswomen repeatedly assured colonial authorities that Hall was physically male, his feminine mannerisms and skill with a needle and thread so unnerved one regional commander that he demanded Hall "be putt in weomans apparell." Other stories include that of the ne'er-do-well Pinion family, who brawled through two generations of theft, adultery, and domestic squabbles in New England, and a man and woman brought up before a Virginia tribunal accused of "a great bussleling and juggling of the bed" judged unseemly in an unmarried couple. Founding Mothers & Fathers offers a full-bellied, incisive view of a developing social hierarchy and the slim margin of power that women held and lost within it. --Francesca Coltrera

Book Description

In this pioneering study of the ways in which the first settlers defined the power, prerogatives, and responsibilities of the sexes, one of our most incisive historians opens a window onto the world of Colonial America. Drawing on a wealth of contemporary documents, Mary Beth Norton tells the story of the Pinion clan, whose two-generation record of theft, adultery, and infanticide may have made them our first dysfunctional family. She reopens the case of Mistress Ann Hibbens, whose church excommunicated her for arguing that God had told husbands to listen to their wives. And here is the enigma of Thomas, or Thomasine Hall, who lived comfortably as both a man and a woman in 17th century Virginia. Wonderfully erudite and vastly readable, Founding Mothers & Fathers reveals both the philosophical assumptions and intimate domestic arrangements of our colonial ancestors in all their rigor, strangeness, and unruly passion.

"An important, imaginative book. Norton destroys our nostalgic image of a 'golden age' of family life and re-creates a more complex past whose assumptions and anxieties are still with us."--Raleigh News and Observer

Customer Reviews:

This book is AWFUL.......2002-09-19

This book is utterly AWFUL when it comes to comparing it with other academic histories. I would not recommend it to anyone, except as one of the worst histories written, EVER.

Book Review by Charles Michael Farley.......2002-04-23

By Mary Beth Norton. Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, hardcover 1996. Pp. ix, 496, appendix, abbreviations, notes, index....hardcover.)

From the time of the Pilgrims to present day, women have played more of a substantial role than they are commonly accredited for. In Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the forming of American Society, Mary Beth Norton parlays her idea that although woman did not have an independent role in the political arena of early American society there were many woman and groups of woman who knew the undisclosed sins of the community. This they used in the assumption of leadership roles among the communities.
Norton goes on to explain power inside the household as well as in the community. She connected Sir Robert Filmers' (The Filmerian view) and John Lockes' philosophies (the Lockean view) to both domestic life and the political structure and formation of early American society.
As you probably know, the practice of bearing children was most likely the primary focus of 17th century colonial woman. Lacking in birth control, a woman would go through a constant cycle of becoming pregnant and giving birth. Norton points out that these regular childbearing sessions excluded men from attending. It is very important to understand the role of the midwife. She could be the necessary one in keeping the woman and child alive during birth. She could, as well, expose any form of bastardization, premarital sex, adultery, and infanticide. The power of the midwives and the ignorance of men on the subject of childbearing gave way to many cases in which women could bend around the "man-made" laws.
It is probably demeaning these days to say that woman "gossip." Well, according to Norton, this did indeed go on during colonial times. The reader will discover the "gossip networks." Due to the fact that woman were separated from men in many social aspects led to these networks. Rumors of criminal activities would travel this way to the Colonial Magistrate and would very often result in punishment for the crime.
I found the two different philosophies on gender power to be very interesting. Should the most power come from the parent most represented, whichever that may be? This idea would bring more power to widows and present them with a greater role in the community. However, the people of this enlightened area would demand that the power of a woman's authority was inexistent outside the home.
Mary Beth Norton is a very accredited historian. This book gives remarkable incite to the power of woman in colonial times. Anyone interested in the social history of our country would enjoy this book and feel enriched after reading it. Many of the woman's roles discussed were unknown to me. Norton puts them across in a very intelligent and unquestionable way using many actual cases of the times to back up her theories.
This book, although written by a scholarly author, is not a difficult reading. Since it deals with many aspects of colonial life unknown to many people the readers interest should withstand through its entirety. Indeed, woman played an immense, although not formal or independent, role in the formation of our country as it is today.
-Charles Michael Farley-

Founding Mothers & Fathers.......2000-05-05

Norton argues that during the mid to late 17th century, colonial American political authority was based on biblical interpretations which encouraged a unified, gender-power based authoritarian system centered on the role of the father as undisputed ruler of his household. The founders were operating in a "Filmerian system" in which the sources of authority in the state and family were identical.

However, this Filmerian system did create opportunities for women to wield some power. High-ranking widows were the rulers of their households and were deferred to by both males and females of lower ranks. Problems arose when these high-ranking widows failed to fall in with the male consensus, such as Anne Hutchinson.

In the Chesapeake region, the Filmerian system was much less successful than in New England because the Chesapeake settlers were predominantly single men. The family-based power system failed in this region because it had very few traditional family households. Although power remained gender-based in the Chesapeake region, it became more like a "Lockian system" in which power in the family was differentiated from political power.

Mary Beth Does Again!.......1998-11-30

Cornell University professor Mary Beth Norton has once again turned the world of colonial American history scholarship on its head with her incisive review of gendered power structures in the 17th century mainland English colonies. For the first time she exposes the world to Filmerian thought and its implications for women (and men!) in society, both in New England and the Chesapeake. The book is dense, and at times boring and repetitive, but freshly informative too. Multiple stories about sex, sexual deviancy and scandal lighten up otherwise dry scholarly analysis. This is a valuable addition to the literature of colonial American history which has ignored feminist analysis for so long. She's a tough grader, but also a great scholar and a fabulous teacher. Even a dead white male worshipper like me can enjoy and learn from her brilliance! Good luck on your next project Mary Beth, I eagerly await it.

To the Latest Posterity: Pennsylvania-German Family Registers in the Fraktur Tradition (Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society (2001), V. 37.)

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To the Latest Posterity: Pennsylvania-German Family Registers in the Fraktur Tradition (Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society (2001), V. 37.)
Corinne P. Earnest , and Russell D. Earnest
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0271023686

Relative Intimacy: Fathers, Adolescent Daughters, and Postwar American Culture (Gender and American Culture)

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FASCINATING ANALYSIS OF AN INVISIBLE TREND

Relative Intimacy: Fathers, Adolescent Daughters, and Postwar American Culture (Gender and American Culture)
Rachel Devlin
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807856053
Release Date: 2006-09-26

Book Description

Celebrated as new consumers and condemned for their growing delinquencies, teenage girls emerged as one of the most visible segments of American society during and after World War II. Contrary to the generally accepted view that teenagers grew more alienated from adults during this period, Rachel Devlin argues that postwar culture fostered a father-daughter relationship characterized by new forms of psychological intimacy and tinged with eroticism.

According to Devlin, psychiatric professionals turned to the Oedipus complex during World War II to explain girls' delinquencies and antisocial acts. Fathers were encouraged to become actively involved in the clothing choices and makeup practices of their teenage daughters, thus domesticating and keeping under paternal authority their sexual maturation. In Broadway plays, girls' and women's magazines, and works of literature, fathers often appeared as governing figures in their daughters' sexual coming-of-age. It became the common sense of the era that adolescent girls were fundamentally motivated by their Oedipal needs, dependent upon paternal sexual approval, and interested in their fathers' romantic lives. As Devlin demonstrates, the pervasiveness of depictions of father-adolescent daughter eroticism on all levels of culture raises questions about the extent of girls' independence in modern American society and the character of fatherhood during America's fabled embrace of domesticity in the 1940s and 1950s.

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FASCINATING ANALYSIS OF AN INVISIBLE TREND.......2005-06-18

The dynamics of father-daugther relationships are usually so commonplace as to be unremarkable. Devlin delves beyond the surface to makes them not only new but vastly deeper and more interesting. From WWII on she shows the reader how a new idea of "normal" was created. A must for historians, feminists, and anyone else interested in the nuances of how fathers and daughters relate.

From Fireplace to Cookstove: Technology and the Domestic Ideal in America

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From Fireplace to Cookstove: Technology and the Domestic Ideal in America
Priscilla J. Brewer
Manufacturer: Syracuse University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0815606508

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