Town Born: The Political Economy of New England from Its Founding to the Revolution

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

acknowledgments Chapter 4, ‘‘Political Fabric,’’ is coauthored with Susan Ouellette of St. Michael ’s College. I thank her for permission to use the chapter in this book. I also thank her for her advice on agricultural matters and the advice of Emile Ouellette on carpentry and shipbuilding. This project has taken some twenty years, so I can hardly remember all the people whom I should thank. In 1988 the American Council of Learned Societies provided me with a fellowship to study at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and it is there that I discovered that colonial New England contained more orphans than a household-led society could possibly accommodate . Subsequently, a Charles Warren Fellowship at Harvard University gave me the time to think about alternative models for colonial New England ’s social and economic organization while in contact with scholars like Bernard Bailyn, and Fred and Virginia Anderson. More recently, a yearlong American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Endowment for the Humanities fellowship provided the time and access to the AAS’s collections needed to develop a new paradigm. There I also benefited from access to an unusual scholarly community, led by John Hench and Caroline Sloat, that sponsored fruitful and often electric exchanges between literary scholars and social historians . My colleagues at the University of Massachusetts have provided direction , especially Jack Tager’s work on social protest, Marla Miller’s work on female tailors and artisanship, and Bruce Laurie’s work on Massachusetts labor systems and antislavery thought. All have read chapters of this project and provided insights. Gerald McFarland and David Glassberg advised me on why a book was needed to develop my ideas; John Higginson shared his insights on youth, labor, and violence, while being nothing but encouraging. My students at the university have provided a demanding, honest, and expressive audience for my arguments. The supporters and staff of the Du Bois 354 acknowledgments Library, University of Massachusetts, have offered me and other scholars a collection I believe is unparalleled for its size and accessibility on early Massachusetts . I thank Hugh Bell for helping to amass it. I want to thank Beth Campbell and James Kelly for helping me use the collections. I also owe much to my friends at the University of Pennsylvania. Richard Dunn gave not only encouragement but also the emphasis and formulations on early American labor systems that inform this book. Michael Zuckerman gave faith, criticism, and encouragement for decades. Richard Beeman told me to take politics seriously, and I finally listened. The McNeil Center for Early American Studies under the leadership of Daniel Richter provided an informed audience for the project at its beginning and toward its finish. I also owe much to the larger world of scholarship. In particular, I want to thank Lois Carr, Neal Salisbury, and especially Bertram Wyatt-Brown for telling me at crucial points that I was on the right track. I benefited from criticism of the manuscript at various stages. Richard D. Brown, of the University of Connecticut, gave the manuscript a helpful reading, as did many anonymous readers. I have hardly answered all their objections, but the book is far better for my wrestling with them. Daniel Richter also read the manuscript and provided valuable advice. At the University of Pennsylvania Press, Robert Lockhart nurtured the last stages of this project with intelligence and care. He introduced me to Grey Osterud, a fine historian and editor, who improved the rhetoric and the substance. I cannot imagine a better developmental editor to give this book the best shape possible. My family not only lived patiently with this project for almost two decades but followed their own projects with gusto and success, educating me in life itself and much else. Thanks and love to my stepmother, Maisie Levy, and sister, Susan Worth, and especially to my sons, Amos and Aaron. Jackie Wolf gave so much in so many ways that I can only dedicate the book to her to express in a small way my gratitude and love. ...