Gossip may be one of the most universal forms of human behavior. If it is so pervasive, it must have some social purpose, even if persons generally condemn its practice.Hansen looks at this question from a sociological and anthropological point of view, and this forms the focus of Chapter 5. We’ll want to look at the content of gossip, at the reasons why reputation was so jealously guarded, at what kind of sanctions arose against persons based on “community juries,” and how all of these tended to enforce the solidarity of communities.
Communities as close knit as New England communities are become subject to all sorts of stresses. Often these stresses lead to varieties of anti-social behavior: drunkenness, abuse of children and spouses, and the like. Against those forces of disintegration are arraigned informal practices like gossip and formal social institutions like the Church. We’ll look at religion Thursday.
Norman Rockwell, America's favorite illustrator in his time, was coincidentally a New Englandter. It seems he understood the idea of gossip quite well.
Read, in Hansen,
Chapter 5, “True Opinion, Clear of Polish”114 - 136
For Monday, November 14
Read, in Hanson,
Chapter 6, “Getting Religion: The Church as a Social Institution”
pp. 137 - 164
Keep your eyes open for several themes here. First, thinking in the broadest of terms, what did it mean to be religious in 19th century New England? The question implies that it meant more than one thing, and we need to have a sense of the various functions the church fulfilled in the life of the New England town and for New England citizens. Second, be aware of the concept of “sectarianism” and the role it played in New England life. Don’t think of this as an uncomplicated role, however. You’re going to want to look at the implications of the table on page 152. An explanation of the findings in the table appears on the previous page. Finally, be aware of the relationship between religious institutions and social reform of all sorts. In was ways were religious institutions in competition with the “public sphere”.
Compare the 18th century Rockingham, VT, Meetinghouse (above) with the 19th North Cornwall, CT, Church to the left. Meetinghouses didn't look that much different from large houses on the exterior. The primary door was on the broad side of the building. The pulpit would be directly across from it. This meant that the average distance from the preacher's mouth to the listeners' ears was considerably less. Sermons were the centerpiece of the religious services.
By the 19th century the form of the building changed. The entrance was on the narrow dimension of the rectangle, returning to traditional church design. Buildings like these would serve throughout the 19th and 20th centuries down to today. They would be joined by buildings built to current tastes and fashions as towns grew and the religious lives of them grew more complex.
For Wednesday, November 16
The plan of the meeting house in Alma, Maine. The function of this kind of planning was to get everyone as close to the minister as possible. The spoken word--scriptures and sermons dominated and hearing was all important. The same would have been true of other meetings held in the structure, of course. Click on the image for other drawings and pictures
Below is the floor plan of the Burlington Congregational (later, Unitarian) church). Notice the difference. Calculate how much further away the persons in the back pew are. Click on the drawing for more drawings and pictures.
You can imagine the congrecations in A Very Social Time singing something like this. People still gather to keep the tradition of shape note singingalive.
For Friday, November 18
Read, in Hanson,
Conclusionpp. 165 - 170
I've spent considerable time this semester complaining about the format of Hanson's book. But now we see the good part. The last nearly 100 pages are appendixes and footnotes, so we can say a temporary good-bye to A Very Social Time.
What I willl want to do is recapitulate her main themes, and think with you for a bit the extent to which these ideas still form part of New England Character.
The other task for the day is to begin the process of sorting out the things we're going to read and discuss from New England Legends and Folklore. We're not going to work through the whole book by any means. What I want each class member to do is to choose three stories around a given place, subject, or theme, and lead an informal discussion on that with the rest of us on what they suggest about New England Character. Our target date for completion is the scheduled time for our final exam, Friday, 16 December, at 4:00. p.m. Depending on how efficient we are flinishing our work in Nylander, we may start before that date, and if we're hyper-efficient we may finish up with the last class period.
Some students have wished to work in groups, and that's fine by me, as long as the individual contributions are clear.
This day, I'm going to ask students to go to the board and write down their choices (click on the button below to get a table of contents). Because I don't want to have an overlap if at all possible, I'd like you to have a could of backup choices so we can conduct negotiations as necessary. You won't need to write down the whole title of the story on the board...the designation (i.e. B-1 or LN - 6 will be sufficient for checking doubles).
Communities as close knit as New England communities are become subject to all sorts of stresses. Often these stresses lead to varieties of anti-social behavior: drunkenness, abuse of children and spouses, and the like. Against those forces of disintegration are arraigned informal practices like gossip and formal social institutions like the Church. We’ll look at religion Thursday.
