Massachusetts Historical Society, “The Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive”- Review of \u3ci\u3eMy Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams. Edited by Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor\u3c/i\u3e

My Dearest Friend contains 289 letters “selected from the entire corpus” of the Adams letters from 1762 to 1801 and “is meant to show both the consistency of their relationship and the evolution of the family through the entire founding era.” A three-page epilogue on the death of Abigail consists of a short headnote and two letters exchanged between John and John Quincy Adams. All but three of the letters in My Dearest Friend are in the Adams Family manuscript collection given by the Adams family to the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) in 1956. The letters were all microfilmed on 608 reels by the MHS in the 1950s and sold to research libraries throughout the world. The Abigail and John letters appear on the MHS Web site (www.masshist.org) at “The Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive.” (See below.) Abigail and John’s letters also appear among the volumes of The Adams Family Correspondence published by The Bel - knap Press of Harvard University Press. Nine volumes have been published to date, covering the years through 1793. All of the published Adams volumes appear on the MHS Web site and are also digitally available on Rotunda, University of Virginia Press

The Rise and Fall of America’s First Bank

In 1686 the leadership of Massachusetts was involved in the first operational bank scheme in America. In 1688 this note-issuing bank was mysteriously aborted at an advanced stage. It was a unique opportunity for financial development that did not arise again for decades. I suggest a new, simple explanation of the bank’s demise: The bank’s notes were supposed to be backed mostly by private land in Massachusetts, but the new royal governor invalidated all the land titles. As in contemporary England, absolutism’s disrespect of property rights prevented financial development.

“Gilded Misery”: The Robie Women in Loyalist Exile and Repatriation, 1775–1790

Forced to flee Marblehead, Massachusetts, in late April 1775, Thomas Robie, his wife Mary Bradstreet Robie, and their four children were among the earliest Loyalist refugees to land in Nova Scotia. The arrival of thousands more Loyalists in 1783 brought widespread hardship to the region, but the collective suffering also provided Mary Bradstreet Robie and her two daughters the opportunity to contribute to the Loyalist community and assert their will within the family. This study of the Robie family demonstrates that Loyalist women were not simply domestic figures of support nor were they resigned to exile as passive followers of husbands and fathers.Forcés de fuir Marblehead, au Massachusetts, à la fin d’avril 1775, Thomas Robie, sa femme, Mary Bradstreet Robie, et leurs quatre enfants furent parmi les premiers Loyalistes à débarquer en Nouvelle-Écosse. L’arrivée de milliers d’autres Loyalistes en 1783 entraîna des difficultés généralisées dans la région, mais la souffrance collective fournit également à Mary Bradstreet Robie et à ses deux filles l’occasion d’apporter une contribution à la communauté loyaliste et d’affirmer leur volonté au sein de la famille. La présente étude de la famille Robie démontre que les femmes loyalistes n’étaient pas simplement une source de soutien au foyer, pas plus qu’elles n’étaient résignées à s’exiler en suivant passivement les maris et les pères de famille

Documents and Archives in Early America

Concern for documents and archival records in America began with religious motives and concern for colonists\u27 rights. By the late 18th century historians increasingly relied on original documents to establish facts and objective truth. Beginning with the Revolution historical documents served patriotic and nationalistic purposes, such as veneration of heroes. Efforts to preserve irreplaceable documents resulted in two separate but closely linked traditions- multiplying the copies through documentary editing and publication, and establishing repositories to protect original documents. This marked the beginning of archival consciousness in America, led by private historical societies. Archives served the needs of the social elite and confirmed their power

“Unknown and Unlamented”: Loyalist Women in Nova Scotia from Exile to Repatriation, 1775-1800

Between 1775 and 1784, more than 60,000 people fled the American states in order to escape the divisive civil war that tore apart communities and individual families. More than half of these people moved north to the maritime colonies of British Canada. While some of these “loyalists” were ardent supporters of the British Empire, many more found their allegiances thrust upon them due to their status as dependents. This study examines the experience of refugee women in Nova Scotia in order to better understand not only Revolutionary-era allegiance, but also women’s important public and private roles in exile and repatriation. Although historians have portrayed loyalist women as consoling wives and daughters who dutifully submitted to men’s will, refugee women were not merely passive acceptors of their fate, nor resigned to domestic roles of support. Paying particular attention to both women’s expressions of emotion and the societal norms that governed late eighteenth-century society, this dissertation examines how loyalist women’s empathetic actions carried tremendous power in communities where loss and hardship were endemic. The widespread suffering of exile provided women the opportunity to take on important communal roles where they could both demonstrate their own fellow feeling and build the intangible networks that created new communities. Women also wielded their emotions in the home. Unhappy wives and daughters forced reluctant husbands and fathers to reconsider their families’ future as exiles, and brought many back to the United States after the war

A Cuban Connection: Edwin F. Atkins, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., and the Former Slaves of Soledad Plantation

Edwin F. Atkins and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., stand out on this stage not as major players but as a particularly intriguing Boston connection. Among the truly major players, planters like Juli?n Zulueta and the Count of Casa More owned hundreds of slaves and shaped Spanish policy. On the Cuban nationalist side, few could equal the impact of Antonio Maceo, the mulato insurgent general who insisted on full emancipation at the end of the 1868-1878 war, or the thousands of rebels who fought under the orders of rebel generals Maceo and Maximo Gomez. As the master of some ninety-five patrocinados beginning in 1884, Edwin Atkins was a late arrival on the scene of slavery. But he did leave an exceptionally rich record of his years in Cuba, including daily correspondence with the manager of Soledad, his sugar estate. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., enjoyed a walk-on part, visiting Edwin Atkins at Soledad plantation for several weeks in 1890. He spent his mornings on horseback exploring the neighborhood and his afternoons writing wry, care fully crafted letters to his wife and his brother. Together, the Atkins and the Adams papers-both held by the Massachusetts Historical Society-provide a vivid portrait of the end of slavery and the first years of freedom

Daniel Webster and Jacksonian Democracy

Originally published in 1973. Professor Nathans illuminates the changes wrought by Jacksonian democracy on the career of Daniel Webster, a major political figure, and on the destiny of a major political party, the Whigs. Daniel Webster was a creative anachronism in the Jacksonian era. His career illustrates the fate of a generation of American politicians, reared to rule in a traditional world of defined social classes where gentlemen led and the masses followed. With extensive research into primary sources, Nathans interprets Webster as a leader in the older political tradition, hostile to permanent organized political parties and fearful of social strife that party conflict seemed to promote. He focuses on Webster's response to the rise of entrenchment of voter-oriented partisan politics. He analyzes Webster's struggle to survive, comprehend, and finally manipulate the new politics during his early opposition to Jackson; his roles in the Bank War and the nullification crisis; and the contest for leadership within the Whig Party from 1828 to 1844. Webster and the Whigs resisted and then belatedly attempted to answer the demands of the new egalitarian mass politics. When Webster failed as an apologist for government by the elite, he became a rhapsodist of American commercial enterprise. Seeking a new power base, he adapted his public style to the standards of simplicity and humility that the voters seemed to reward. Nathans shows, however, that Webster developed a realistic vision of the common bonds of Jacksonian society—of the basis for community—that would warrant anew the trust needed for the kind of leadership he offered. The meaning of Webster's career lies in these attempts to bridge the old and new politics, but his attempt was doomed to ironic and revealing failure. Nathans studies Webster's impact on the Whig party, showing that his influence was strong enough to thwart the ambitions of his rivals Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun but not strong enough to achieve his own aspirations. Nathans argues that Webster, through his efforts to increase his authority within the party, merely revealed his true weakness as a sectional leader. His successful blocking of Clay and Calhoun brought about a deadlock that significantly hastened the transfer of power to men more committed to strong party organization and more talented at voter manipulation. Webster's dilemma was the crisis of an entire political generation reared for a traditional world and forced to function in a modern one

King Philip\u27s War in Maine

A study was made of the Indian war in Maine, which started in the late summer of 1675 and continued until the spring of 1678. The causes and consequences of the war are presented as they relate to the situation on the Northern colonial frontier (Maine), and as they contrast to the war and social situation in southern New England. The two major campaigns of the war in Maine are examined in detail. Three political questions are discussed as related to the war: (1) the legal control of Maine (2) the support of the war effort by the United Colonies of New England; and (3) the pacification effort of Massachusetts and New York to subdue the Maine Indians. The historiographical significance of the thesis is that it completes the story of King Philip\u27s War started in the doctoral dissertation of Douglas E. Leach at Harvard University. It is also a preliminary inquiry into the issue of French involvement in New England affairs, prior to King William\u27s War, an issue not discussed by Leach

Jonathan Belcher: Colonial Governor

As early as the eighteenth century, New England\u27s ministers were decrying public morality. Evangelical leaders such as Jonathan Edwards called for rulers to become spiritual as well as political leaders who would renew the people\u27s covenant with God. The prosperous merchant Jonathan Belcher (1682-1757) self-consciously strove to become such a leader, an American Nehemiah. As governor of three royal colonies and early patron of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), Belcher became an important but controversial figure in colonial America. In this first biography of the colonial governor, Michael C. Batinski depicts a man unusually riddled with contradictions. While governor of Massachusetts, Belcher deftly maneuvered longstanding rivals toward a political settlement; yet as chief executive of New Hampshire, he plunged into bitter factional disputes that destroyed his administration. The quintessential Puritan, Belcher learned to thrive in London\u27s cosmopolitan world and in the whiggish realm of the marketplace. He was at once the courtier and the country patriot. An insightful blend of social and political history, this biography demands that Belcher be recognized as the embodiment of the Nehemiah, perhaps as important in his own realm as Cotton Mather was in religious circles. Grappling with the contradictions of Belcher\u27s actions, the author explains much about the complexities of the world in which Belcher lived and wielded influence. Michael C. Batinski is professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/1044/thumbnail.jp