Chapter 5, Section 1Early American Culture

Bell Ringer

1. Look at the chart (also on page 136). Which groups owned land?

2. What do you think the difference was between an indentured servant and an unskilled worker?

Key terms

Apprentice – a beginner who learns a trade or a craft from an experienced master

Great Awakening – a revival of religious feeling in the American colonies during the 1730s and 1740s

Jonathan Edwards – well-known preacher during the Great Awakening; his sermons terrified listeners with images of God’s anger but promised they could be saved

George Whitefield – well-known preacher during the Great Awakening; he raised funds to start a home for orphans

Enlightenment – an 18th century movement that emphasized the use of reason and the scientific method to obtain knowledge

Benjamin Franklin – famous American Enlightenment figure; used reason to improve society

John Locke – English philosopher who argued that people have natural rights (life, liberty, and property)

What were the characteristics of colonial society?

People in England’s colonies had a heritage of political rights and other shared characteristics that created a unifying culture among the colonists.

Some of those shared characteristics were an emphasis on family, hard work, and clearly defined gender roles.

In Europe, land was the main measure of wealth, but only a small number of people owned it.

America had land in abundance, and many European colonists moved here because they hoped to own land of their own.

In Europe, there was not much movement among social and economic classes.

But in colonial America, there was more social equality among settlers—at least among white settlers.

Still, there were many class distinctions.

Colonial Social RanksHIGHLarge landownersChurch officialsGovernment officialsWealthy merchantsUPPER MIDDLESmall farmersTradespeopleLOWER MIDDLERentersUnskilled workersLOWIndentured servantsSlaves

The Gentry (Upper)

Size of Group • The gentry were few in number, but they were the most powerful people.

Occupations • The gentry included wealthy planters, merchants, ministers, royal officers, successful lawyers and, often, prosperous artisans.

Lifestyle • People in this group often had luxurious homes filled with expensive furniture.

Public Office • Because many official jobs paid no salary, few but the gentry could afford to hold office.

The Middle Class

Size of Group • The great majority of European colonists were middle class and were neither rich nor poor.

Occupations • Men in the middle class were small planters, independent farmers, and artisans.

Ethnicities • The middle class was mostly white, but some of its members were of African descent.

Public Office • Middle-class men could vote, and a few held public office.

The growth of the middle class gave the poor something to hope for and work for.

In this way, the colonies were different from England and the rest of Europe.

In America, people could acquire property and move up the social scale.

Indentured Servants

Countries of Origin

• In the 1600s, most indentured servants came from England.

• In the 1700s, a growing number came from Ireland and Germany.

Status • Indentured servants and farmhands were just above enslaved Africans on America’s social scale.

Rights • Indentured servants were bound to obey their masters, and they had few, if any, rights.

• Those who disobeyed could be whipped, or time might be added to their service.

At the end of a term, an indentured servant received clothes, tools, and 50 acres of land.

About 1 indentured servant in 10 became a prosperous landowner, and another 1 in 10 became an artisan.

The others either returned to their country of origin or joined a class of landless, poor whites.

v v

Land, Rights, and Wealth 1. What special rights did landowners enjoy?

Free to use or sell whatever their land produced

Political rights

Only white, male landowners could vote; people who lived in the city could pay a fee to vote

2. How did land ownership affect a colonist’s place in society?

Large landowners were higher in rank

Small farmers who owned their land were in the middle (the majority of the colonists)

Non-landowners (servants, slaves) were at the bottom

Women held the rank of their husbands or fathers

Seats in church were according to your place in society

In the colonies, men and women generally took on different roles.

If men were not farmers, they worked as carpenters, coopers, butchers, wheelwrights, or in other trades.

A husband and father was the leader of his family, and he controlled his family’s income and property.

A colonial woman often bore her husband many children, and childcare took up much of her time.

Her other domestic responsibilities included cooking, laundry, making cloth and sewing clothes, gardening, tending animals, and preserving food.

Other Roles of Women

On Farms • A woman might help plow, pitch hay, or do other chores, especially if she lived on the western frontier.

In Towns • A woman might keep a shop or an inn or work as a baker, a printer, or even an undertaker.

In Public Life

• Because they could not vote or hold office, women had little or no role in public life.

• But on the western and southern frontiers, once in a while women participated in government in an advisory capacity.

The lives of colonial women were different from the lives of American women today.

If they survived infancy, colonial children had seven years before they were required to work.

Children often played games such as hopscotch and jump rope, and they played with toys such as homemade dolls and tops.

By the age of seven, most children did household or farm chores, or, if they were poor, they might become servants in other families.

When they got older, boys learned how to farm from their fathers, while girls learned how to keep house from their mothers.

Boys who were learning trades began as apprentices and then worked independently.

Women and the Economy/ Young People at Work

3. What work did colonial women and young people do? Farm wives cooked, churned butter, made soap and candles,

spun fibers, wove cloth, sewed, knitted, and tended to the garden, animals, and children

Kids worked – looked after farm animals, gathered berries, and babysat younger children

Boys were apprenticed (age 11)

In what ways was women’s work essential to the economy? Women did tasks and made products necessary for their

families and neighbors Some also ran businesses

Women and the Economy/ Young People at Work

4. What rights were denied women? Could not vote, preach, or hold office in church Married women could not own property without her

husband’s consent Any money a woman earned belonged to her husband

How did the training of boys and girls differ? Boys learned from their fathers or were apprenticed to

craftsmen. Girls learned from their mothers or neighbors

The Puritans passed laws that required towns of a certain size to open schools.

These Massachusetts laws were the beginning of public schools in America.

Puritan schools were run with both private and public money.

Puritan education laws were not completely compulsory.

Some towns paid a fine rather than set up a school.

Laws that required all children to attend school did not begin until the late 1800s.

School Attendance

Colonial Schools

Religion • In the 1600s, most schools were under religious sponsorship, and they provided instruction in religion.

Elementary Schools

• Colonial elementary schools taught reading, writing, and arithmetic.

• Children learned from hornbooks and from a 1680s reading book called the New England Primer.

Southern Schools

• There were few schools in the South, so the gentry often hired private tutors to teach their children.

• Poor children often received no formal education at all.

Some girls attended colonial elementary schools, while others went to dame schools.

Most schools were restricted to white children, but one New York school taught free African Americans, Native Americans, and poor whites.

Some Quaker and Anglican missionaries taught enslaved people to read.

After that was outlawed, some enslaved people taught themselves, while others passed on their knowledge in secret.

Higher Education

Grammar Schools

• Some boys went on to grammar schools, which prepared them for college.

• Grammar schools taught Greek, Latin, geography, mathematics, and English composition.

Colleges • The first American colleges were founded largely to educate men for the ministry.

• Harvard University (1638) was the first college in the English colonies.

• The College of William and Mary (1693) was the first college in the South.

At age 17, Benjamin Franklin started the Pennsylvania Gazette, which became the most widely read newspaper in the colonies.

Franklin also wrote Poor Richard’s Almanack (1733–1753) and a vivid autobiography.

Franklin eventually became one of the founders of the United States.

COLONIAL SCHOOLING/NEWSPAPERS AND BOOKS

5. Why were most colonial children taught to read?

So they could understand the Bible

6. What were some common colonial attitudes about the importance of education?

Thought schooling was more important for males

Textbooks emphasized religion

7. What types of books did colonists read?

Newspapers, almanacs, poetry, histories, autobiographies, captivity narratives

How was colonial education different from education today?

Education today lasts longer, covers more subjects, is less religious, and is available to more people

How did ideas about religion and government influence colonial life?

The Great Awakening, one of the first national movements in the colonies, reinforced democratic ideas.

The Enlightenment informed colonists’ ideas about the structure of government and the rights of citizens.

The Great Awakening

Time Period

• An emotion-packed Christian movement called the Great Awakening swept through the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

Causes • By the 1700s, religious rules had become less strict in many of the colonies.

• The Great Awakening began as a reaction against what some Christians saw as a decline of religious zeal in the colonies.

Leaders • Jonathan Edwards wrote a famous sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

• English minister George Whitefield made several tours of the colonies.

The Great Awakening led to:

more tolerance of religious differences in the colonies.

the rise of many new churches, such as the Methodists and the Baptists.

the split of many churches, such as the Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and Congregational churches.

Starting in the late 1600s, a group of European thinkers started an intellectual movement called the Enlightenment.

These thinkers believed all problems

could be solved by human reason.

The Enlightenment reached its height in the mid-1700s in France.

In 1690, an Englishman named John Locke published the influential work Two Treatises on Government.

In this work, Locke argued that people have certain inalienable natural rights that include life, liberty, and property.

Locke challenged the idea of divine right, arguing instead that God grants natural rights to the people.

Divine Right Natural Rights

Where does the right to govern come from?

From God to the ruler

From the people

Where do people’s rights come from?

From the ruler From God to the people

What happens if a government violates people’s rights?

People must obey ruler

People can change their government

Locke wrote that people formed governments in order to protect their rights.

If a monarch violates those rights, the people have a right to overthrow the monarch.

This idea would later shape the founding of the United States.

Monarch

The People

A French thinker, the Baron de Montesquieu, also influenced American ideas.

In his 1748 book, The Spirit of the Laws, he argued for separation of powers in government.

He said separation of powers keeps any one person or group from gaining too much power.

Montesquieu suggested that government should be divided into three branches:

This division of power became the basis of government in the United States.

executive

legislative

judicial

The Great Awakening

8. What was the Great Awakening? How did it change colonial culture?

It was a religious movement – revival of religious feeling in the American colonies during the 1730s and 1740s.

It split congregations apart and churches gained members; encouraged ideas of individual worth, equality, and the right to challenge authority

Great Awakening

What were the five effects of the Great Awakening? It encouraged:

1.Religious debate

2.Church membership

3.New colleges

4.Charitable projects

5.Ideas of equality and independence

The Enlightenment

9. How did the Enlightenment affect the colonies?

Brought a better understanding of education

Ideas of natural rights and government by agreement influenced leaders

Colonists began to wonder whether the British government protected their rights and freedoms

10. In what ways were the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment similar? How were they different?

Similar – both very influential; had far-reaching effects on the colonies; changed the way people thought

Different – the Great Awakening was a religious movement; Enlightenment was an intellectual movement