American Studies 335
New England
Roger Williams University
CAS 120
M, W, F, 1:00-1:20
Fall Semester, 2011
Michael R. H. Swanson, Ph. D.
Office:  GHH 215
Hours: M, W, F  11:00-12:00
T, 2:30 - 4:00 or by appointment
Phone:  254 3230
E-mail:  amst335@gmail.com
Index
Read, in The New England Village,
Chapter 4. Villages in the Federal Period, pp. 88 - 113

I'm glad we took the time to spend a whole period talking together  about The Midwife's Tale.  It was helpful to get you sharing your insightes and developing new ones in the conversation.  It won't hurt to give you an extra few days on Wood's Chapter  4, which In many ways is the core of the 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.
Illustrations of these villages played a prominent part in  Wood's Chapter 4: 

So it is Treasure Hunt Time again.  I'd like each of you to fine one or more illustrations, contemporary, or historical, from ONE of the towns listed above and post it with a brief description to your journal. Try hard NOT to repeat the "finds" of others in the class, which means taking a quick look to see what's been posted before you hunt, yourself. First come, first served, and happy hunting.

Meriden, Connecticut looks considerably different now, doesn't it?  The picture is from Panoramio, a website where thousands of amateur photographers add work of their own...most of the photographs are scenic, and capture impressions which ordinary people find worth recording.  Visit it by clicking on the image.
For Monday, October  17
Download and Read,

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

For Wednesday, October 19

Read, in The New England Village,
Chapter 5, "The Village as a Vernacular Form", 114-134

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.

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.

You'll find similar situations surrounding the
common here in Bristol, RI
For Friday,  October 21

Read, in Wood,
Chapter 6, "The Settlement Ideal", pp. 135-160


Link to Slide-Show of Concord, MA.
Link to a sliide-show of other views of Litchfield.
Litchfield, Connecticut (Left) and Concord, Massachusetts (below) are iconic images of New England today.  Both are considered "colonial" in the minds of Americans, and visitors from overseas, but the images one sees in the town centers of each are late 19th century, buildings and landscapes alike.  Click on the images to study slide-shows of each town.  We'll look at them in class, as well.
Hurricane Irene, who paid us a visit in September, probably wiped out the chance of gloroious fall folliage in much of New England.  Does the fall coloration enhance the sense of nostalgia and dreams  of glorious days gone by?  What do you think?
Next week, we're going to start juggling books in earnest.  By next Friday we'll be working in two, and possibly three, simultaneously.  Most of the buildings in towns and villages are houses, so it's about time we start looking at them a little more closely.  But the houses themselves are merely stages on which the dramas of life are enacted, as you saw in The Midwife's Tale. 
Bristol, Rhode Island, End of the Line. 
Aaallllllll Aboooaaaarrrrddd