Special Notice:










In honor of Lief Erikson Day (Lief was the “real” Europan discoverer of America, and is symbol of proud Scandinavians everywhere), Tuesday is Cancelled.  Monday will be held in its place.  (In other words, attend your Monday Classes on October 10th)
Click for a Print Friendly View of Course Introduction
Michael R. H. Swanson, Ph. D.
Office:  CAS 110
Hours:         T, Th,  9:30 - 11:00
W, 2:00 - 3:00,  F, 1:00-2:00
Phone:  254 3230
E-mail:  amst335@msn.com
American Studies 335
New England
Roger Williams University
CAS 228
Tuesday and Friday, 2:00 - 3:20
Fall Semester, 2006
The Week's Work

Read, in The New England Village,
Chapter 4. Villages in the Federal Period, pp. 88 - 113
Chapter 5, "The Village as a Vernacular Form", 114-134
Chapter 6, "The Settlement Ideal", pp. 135-160 (We may not get this far, but just in case. . .)
Download and Read,

Identification of Historic Landscapes by the National Park Service, which you can find by clicking the button below.

Notes on Readings:
In many ways Chapter 4 is the core of Wood's book. Here we learn that the village forms we traditionally have associated with colonial New England are actually products of the early 19th century. There are some terms you'll need to understand here:


Give some time to studying the figures showing town development (figures 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.8, 4.10, and 4.11) See if you can form a hypothesis about the different patterns of town development you see in each place.
Regarding Chapter 5, it is important to understand the concept "vernacular" To help you with this,  I’ve asked you to read the The National Park Service bulletin above.

In Chapter 6 Wood focuses on the process by which the 19th century vernacular village form is transformed into the "ideal" American Community. He sees this as both a conscious and unconscious process shaped largely by intellectual and political elites. A list of some of the most important of these is found on pp. 141-142.
Click to see more Federal Style Houses
Click to view other Greek Revival Style Buildings.
Federal Style houses such as that to the left dominated wealthier New England towns and villages in the early 19th century.  The style descends from the Georgian Style of the 18th century, but is more sophisticated and austere in its design.  Linden Place is Bristol's most elaborate Federal house, but there are many others scattered in the downtown area
In another twenty years the Federal Style began to be replaced by the Greek Revival Style.  The name was taken from the use of shapes associated with Ancient Greek Temples, but in the United States nearly any kind of building could be built in imitation of buildings like the Parthenon.  Bristol has many examples of Greek Revival Buildings, both large and small.

Clicking on either illustration will take you to more examples of the style.
Click to see the entire panorama map.
The 19th Century Common at Gardiner, Maine in 1878.  Note ways in which this area has been "improved" or "beautified", and compare it with similar areas presented in Wood, Chapters 4 and 5.


Note, too that for all the attempt to beautify this spiritual and culture center of Gardiner, it remains quite irregular. Paths within the common connect important places, and don't complete a symmetrical geometric pattern. Clicking on the image at the right links you to the original image, provided by the Library Of Congress.
Though this is the heart of town, streets like Filmore Place simply peter out.  Strangers would have a difficult time knowing where they were or how to get to where they were going.  Many irregular green spaces still exist, demonstrating the organic way the town grew.  If anything, the outskirts are built more densely than the center is.