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a c k n ow l e d g m e n ts i wanted my acknowledgments to be witty and self-effacing. But upon reflection, I am not all that witty. And as Benjamin Franklin said in his Autobiography, ‘‘I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory Words, Without Vanity I may say, &c. but some vain thing immediately follow’d.’’ So let me eschew modesty, note that I worked hard on this book, and simply thank those who provided steadfast support along the way. First, I would like to express my gratitude to those institutions that provided financial assistance. At the University of Pennsylvania, I received a Benjamin Franklin Graduate Fellowship and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship . A Gest Fellowship from the Quaker Collection at Haverford College helped fund forays into Quaker history. Fellowships from the Pew Program in Religion and American History at Yale University and the Spencer Foundation helped fund my writing at crucial moments. Since my arrival at UC Davis, I have been fortunate enough to receive internal and external sources of support. Grants from the faculty Committee on Research and the Institute for Governmental Affairs helped fund research trips to Philadelphia and the purchase of much needed microfilm. A Barbara Thom Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Huntington Library gave me the time and space to reconstruct the manuscript along much different lines than I had originally. A University of California President’s Fellowship in the Humanities allowed me to finish revisions on the project. Without the generous support of these institutions, I could never have completed this project. I would also like to thank those undergraduate teachers who shaped my intellectual development at a young age. Barbara Oberg and Doron Ben-Atar convinced me to be an undergraduate history major, and Doron was the first person to suggest that I might be good at the Ph.D. thing. As a teacher and thesis advisor, David Brion Davis helped me understand the moral dimensions of historical scholarship. Special thanks go to Jon Butler. Jon was a 398 acknowledgments model mentor during my time at Yale and has continued in that capacity since I graduated. He was kind (and patient) enough to treat me as a colleague even when I was a very junior (and very callow) scholar. For that especially, he has my gratitude. At Penn, I was fortunate to work with a number of brilliant, and demanding , early Americanists. Richard Dunn encouraged me when I needed it and offered an appropriately skeptical eye when my work went off track. Kathy Brown was patient with my early struggles to understand gender history . She was a tough, but fair, critic and offered me crucial guidance on this project at several critical points along the way. Dan Richter showed me that Indian history was colonial history. He also offered a heavy editorial hand on one section of this book that greatly improved its prose. Last, but most certainly not least, I must thank my teacher, mentor, and friend Mike Zuckerman . The personal and professional debts I owe Mike are too great to list here, but suffice it to say that I would not be the scholar I am today without his guidance. His voluminous and incisive commentary on this project at every stage forced me to refine my ideas and my prose at every turn. He always encouraged me to find my own voice. That this book deals squarely with many issues central to his own work represents a meeting of the minds, not any attempt on his part to train a junior version of himself. If I disagree with Mike about a vast number of the particulars of early American history, I can safely say that we agree on one big thing: the continued relevance of studying early American history in a multicultural United States. I am deeply grateful for Mike’s example. I would also like to thank two research institutions whose help was invaluable . I cannot imagine a place more ideal for studying colonial America than the McNeil Center for Early American Studies. The Center’s founding and current directors, Richard Dunn and Dan Richter, each provided me office space during my multiple stays in Philadelphia, and each invited me to present portions of this work at the Center’s Friday seminar. I am grateful to those members of the Center community for their camaraderie and their willingness to listen to me talk about my work, particularly Niki Eustace, Brooke Hunter, Tom...

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