Righteousness, Reservation, Remembrance: Freedom-Loving Whites, Freedom-Seeking Blacks, and the Societies They Formed in Adams County

On the border between slave society and free society a collection of ideologies mixed. The residents of Adams County, even before its inception on January 22, 1800, lived in a state of division that swirled and crashed against the omnipresent slavery conundrum. The New World Renaissance swept through Adams County in the 1830s bringing schools, public works, businesses, and most culturally significant, new ideas. These ideas would prove to be the fount from which flowed the waters of reform. As the first settlers had made good use of the physical creeks and streams that dotted their pastoral landscape, so too would they put to good use the waters of reform welling up all around them. From temperance to anti-masonry, these reform movements would lend a helping hand in the creation of the most socially progressive institution the county could harbor: an abolition society. However, the Adams County Anti-Slavery Society would be stunted along the way, allowing external pressures to beat back its radicalism. Because of this, the Adams County Anti-Slavery Society never fully realized its potential as a reform movement and degenerated into a Saturday Club, where radical statements might be made but never acted upon. It was here that a split occurred. There were two common paths that the membership took as they came to realize the fate of their anti-slavery organization. The first of these paths was acceptance. Many of the members had been in reform societies of some type before the Anti-Slavery Society. A large group of these individuals decided that a moderated reformism was better than no reformism and they perpetuated a version of the original society, keeping it well stocked and gentlemanly. The other path, taken by those touched with a deep fervor for reform culminates in the use of extra-legal means. The Underground Railroad. This path also bred a strong tradition of communal memory spun from its participant\u27s perceived failure at abolition. This paper will discuss the machinations, myths, and memory of not only the Anti-Slavery Society, but also of the Underground Railroad, Yellow Hill community, and the people who made these organizations work

Negotiating Community Values: The Franklin County Agricultural Society Premium Lists, 1844-1889

The creation of agricultural fairs was originally intended as a way to achieve agricultural and economic reform. Once they took shape, however, the meaning and impact of the fairs was shaped as much or more by those who attended the fairs as it was by the organizers

From Mounds to Monasteries: A Look at Spiro and Other Centers Through The Use of Metaphor

Previous study of the extensive and elaborate funerary offerings at the Spiro site have explained their presence by an exchange system with Spiro functioning as a gateway center. More recently, Schambach has argued extensively and passionately for Spiro’s role as an entrepôt redistributive center. However, this argument fails to account for much of the accumulation of funerary items present at Spiro. As an alternative, I propose that some ceremonial centers such as Spiro functioned solely as religious centers, much like the monasteries of medieval Europe with parallels in the use of architecture, economic support, relics, and the treatment of individuals at death. A model based on the metaphor of monastic life provides greater explanatory potential than that of the economically-driven entepôt

Diversity in the Heartland of America: The Impact on Human Development in Indiana

This article is the third in a series of studies measuring the impact of cultural diversity on human development. We disaggregate cultural diversity into three components: ethnicity, language, and religion. The first study examined the impact of diversity internationally. We found that countries are worse off with greater diversity, especially religious diversity; however, we found that more-prosperous countries with strong institutions benefited from increased diversity. We concluded that strong institutions are essential to maximize the benefits of diversity while mitigating the associated costs. The second study examined the impact of diversity within the United States, where institutional strength was assumed to be relatively great and similar between states. We found an overall negative impact from diversity. Ethnic diversity was negatively associated with human development, while religious and language diversity had a positive impact. We concluded that in the United States, there is more tolerance for religious and language differences compared to ethnic differences. In this third study, we examine the impact of diversity within the state of Indiana. As with our national results, we find a generally negative relationship between human development and diversity. Ethnic diversity has a negative impact, while religious and language diversity are generally positive influences. Strong political and legal institutions may not be sufficient to extract net benefits from diversity if social attitudes that guide behavior are not supportive. The results suggest that net benefits from diversity in Indiana may depend on improvement of social attitudes and in commitment to social services that support historically disadvantaged minority groups

Studying local and regional history in Britain and Ireland: The Open University MA in History

Provides a detailed review of the development and curriculum of the MA History programme, explaining the aims and structure of the course. The paper provides an overview of the seminal works of history studied, the skills and resources students learn to deploy, local and regional historiography in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the six major themes of the course (crime & policing, the role of families, poverty & welfare, industry, urbanisation, and religion), and project planning for research and writing a dissertation

The Archaeology of the Archaic Periods in East Texas

The archaeology of the Archaic periods—Early, ca. 10,000–8000 years B.P., Middle, ca. 8000–5000 years B.P., and Late, ca. 5000–2500 years B.P.—in East Texas is not well understood in broad terms, although valuable information on the archaeological character of the Archaic peoples in the region has been gained over the years from the detailed investigation of a few specific sites. New knowledge concerning the archaeology of the Archaic periods in East Texas is slow in coming, due in part to the kinds of Archaic sites that have been identified by archaeologists during survey investigations and/or recommended by archeologists, state agencies, and federal agencies for further work; a general inability to identify contextually intact buried sites in the valleys of East Texas rivers and creeks; and the lack of development of a chronology based on well–controlled absolute dating of features or buried occupation zones in single component or multi–component stratified sites. This article summarizes what is currently known about Archaic peoples and groups over this lengthy period of time in the East Texas region, including the kinds of sites that have been investigated, their known or estimated chronological age, and their associated material culture remains; it does not attempt to rectify the limitations of the known Archaic archaeological record, but rather judiciously presents archaeological findings from selected sites in East Texas, as well as in northwestern Louisiana. Some broad themes of the Archaic in the Eastern Woodlands and Southeastern U.S. also come under consideration, particularly the lack of complexity and the notable apparent absence of evidence of Archaic ritual beliefs seen in the East Texas archaeological record compared to neighboring regions