Building a Meritocracy: The American Precedent for Wealth Redistribution

This work investigates the use of wealth redistribution mechanisms in establishing and promoting meritocratic practices in early United States history. From the fifteenth to eighteenth century, the reward system used in exploration, colonization incentives, and land redistribution techniques are examined. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the effects of industrialization and education on social mobility are reviewed. Finally, the social and economic factors resulting in southern secession, particularly slavery, are examined. While the concept may be unpopular in modern society, wealth redistribution mechanisms were essential to cultivating merit-based social mobility and overall societal stability throughout the period covered

The history of religious education in Virginia from 1607 to 1785

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive. Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universityhttps://archive.org/details/thehistoryofreli00gor

Second Families of Virginia: Professional Power-Brokers in a Revolutionary Age, 1700-1790

Between 1700 and 1790, a diverse assortment of merchants, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and various other specialists forged a prominent position in Virginia that was integral to the colony’s planter-elites. These professionals complicated Virginia’s social hierarchy and affected numerous decisions planters made on personal business ventures, urban development, military conflicts, and political policies. Consequently, as Virginia planters struggled to maintain a sense of socioeconomic dominance, political influence, and familial solidarity, this upper-middling, professional contingent forced planters to compromise their seemingly exclusive modes of behavior. Accounting for the perspectives of professionals and planters, this study addresses how and why this occurred, as well as what it indicated about the deceptively open and fluid nature of a colonial society that many historians continue to view as overwhelmingly hierarchical and static. Prior to 1700, the colony’s great planters monopolized most of the tasks that professionals eventually controlled. Additionally, planters created and perpetuated a culture of exclusivity in Virginia which, despite its aristocratic demeanor, was largely based on false hereditary entitlements and genteel posturing. However, by 1750, many Virginia professionals were challenging such pretensions and becoming successful in the same ways that planters had in the previous century, just with different occupations. In addition to being as well-educated as Virginia’s planters, professionals became crucial to planters’ business dealings, married into planter families, and even earned enough income to make tobacco planting a secondary pursuit. Such developments propelled Virginia’s professionals to higher status; and by the American Revolution, planters were increasingly welcoming professionals into their ranks and preparing some of their sons to pursue full-time occupations outside of plantation management. By doing this, planters kept pace with changing socioeconomic conditions, avoided a catastrophic loss of political power, and salvaged their cultural respectability as plantation-masters. Moreover, as many professionals parlayed their accomplishments and wealth into the purchase of land, slaves, and/or fine homes, the planter-professional relationship was mutually beneficial. Professionals who successfully defied the exclusionist antics of planter-elites became the next major beneficiaries of Virginia’s relatively open society. Yet, Virginia planters still retained the old vestiges of their power and culture well into the nineteenth century

Commonwealth and protectorate in Virginia, 1649-1660

It is the purpose of this thesis to show the vory close nnd contintled relationship between the govern­ ment or England and the colony ot Virginia in the Commonwealth period and the greater independence of Virginia undor the Protectorate.Many debatable questions arose during the Commonwealth period and were treated in accordance with the local situation.The general relationship of this first period is that of close and friendly interest, but, at the same time, the authority of the Commonwealth was maintained.In the Protectorate period there were tower questions, since the Lord Protector was occupied with heavier and more pressing problems concerned with England \u27s foreign and domestic policies. Difficulties between the Council of State and the Virginia Colony in this period were largely the result of the application of the Navigation Act or else the survival or the old colonial policy

Seeds of the Real People: How Cherokee Folk Ways Conflicted with Colonial Culture

The diplomatic relationship between the Cherokee and English colonists (and later the United States) was complex and affected by many variables. Chief among them were the cultural differences between the two peoples and how those differences interacted. Because the two groups were from long separated and isolated continents, their cultural ways were almost entirely alien to one another, with only the shared nature of the human condition to give them any common ground. Initially they had much to offer each other, with trade and military alliance becoming the foundation of their relationship. As the two communities grew closer together, however, and their incompatible folk ways collided more and more frequently, good relations deteriorated into bad. Plenty of individuals on either side were willing to bridge the gap, but were too few to resist the destructive inertia of the ongoing cultural collision. An examination of the conflicting Cherokee and colonial folk ways reveals how a mutually beneficial alliance degenerated into tragedy

Ante Bellum Studies in Slavery, Politics, and the Railroads

Ante Bellum Studies in Slavery, Politics, and the Railroads By Robert R. Russel Professor and Head, Department of History Western Michigan University Series of Articles: What Was the Compromise of 1850? Reprinted from The Journal of Southern History, XXII (August 1956), 292-309. The Economic History of Negro Slavery in the United States. Reprinted from Agricultural History, XI (October 1937), 308-21. The General Effects of Slavery Upon Southern Economic Progress. Reprinted from The Journal of Southern History, IV (February 1938), 34-54. The Effects of Slavery upon Nonslaveholders in the Ante Bellum South. Reprinted from Agricultural History, XV (April 1941), 112-26. A Revaluation of the Period before the Civil War: Railroads. Reprinted from The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XV (December 1928), 341-54. The Pacific Railway Issue in Politics Prior to the Civil War. Reprinted from The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XII (September 1925), 187-201. Bibliography of the Works of Robert R. Russe

Walter Heron Taylor and His Era

This biography examines Colonel Walter Herron Taylor’s involvement in the development of Norfolk, Virginia, into a modern urban seaport. Although this thesis depicts Taylor’s role as Robert E. Lee’s adjutant and Civil War historian, it clearly demonstrates that his civic accomplishments in the post-war era considerably outweighed his efforts for the Confederacy. Colonel Taylor\u27s lifetime career in banking and commerce reflected the changing society of the South from a backward province into a modern industrial and sophisticated section. The author illustrates the Colonel’s participation in Norfolk\u27s growth from the stormy Reconstruction period to the eve of World War I. Throughout these years many significant municipal and social reforms were aided by, or were a direct result of, Colonel Taylor’s activities

Honor, patriarchy, and disunion: Masculinity and the coming of the American Civil War

The dissertation explores the nature of antebellum masculinity and its role in bringing on the American Civil War. It focuses its attention on two crucial episodes of the sectional crisis: the attack on Senator Sumner and the Secession Crisis of 1861 and on the four individuals, Preston Brooks, Charles Sumner, Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln, who played prominent roles in those episodes.;Among the issues it explores are the degree to which Northern and Southern ideas of manhood differed and the degree to which Northerners and Southerners associated manhood with sectional identity. Did Southerners associate being a man with being a Southerner and did Northerners associate being a man with being a Northerner? Did Northerners and Southerners view themselves as more manly than their counterparts? What did people expect from their political leaders and how were those expectations shaped by masculinity? Finally, to what degree did political leaders embrace antebellum ideas of masculinity, what influences were they exposed to and how did those influences shape their ideas of masculinity?;The biographical profiles illustrate how theoretical notions of masculinity were translated into the experiences of real people. As successful politicians chosen by an exclusively white male electorate, it is reasonable to assume that these individuals were keenly aware of antebellum ideas of masculinity. If nothing else they would have had to at least cater to such ideas to maintain their position.;In so doing it demonstrates that 19th century gender roles, and especially 19th century ideas of manhood, played a direct and contributive role in bringing on the sectional crisis and made it inevitable that secession would lead to war. Given the volatile and violent nature of 19th century masculinity, especially that of southerners with its emphasis on honor, violence, and militarism, violent confrontation was not only justified but desirable. In view of such attitudes, war was virtually unavoidable