Identities in the new nation : the creation of an American mainstream in the Delaware Valley, 1770-1830 / Liam O'Boyle Riordan.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Riordan, Liam O'Boyle.

Contributor:

Dunn, Richard S., advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--History.

History--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--History.

History--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

xiii, 435 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Production:

1996.

Summary:

This dissertation examines how personal and group identities structured the transition from a colonial to a national society in the Delaware Valley from 1770 to 1830. It argues that the American Revolution politicized relationships among religious, racial, ethnic, gender, and status identities. The Revolution in the region swept colonial authorities from power by mobilizing individuals around heightened awareness of the importance of diverse local identities. The resilience of localism helped determine the content of early nationalism by creating an American mainstream based upon three qualities with broad (but exclusive) social resonance: respectability, whiteness, and Protestantism. This study explains how the mainstream cohered by focusing on the diverse inhabitants of three towns from distinct areas in the Delaware River valley: New Castle, Delaware; Burlington, New Jersey; and Easton, Pennsylvania. The study combines a social history methodology that analyzes tax and census sources with theoretical concerns shaped by historical ethnography and cultural studies. In addition to manuscripts and institutional records, it examines an array of non-traditional evidence such as architecture, clothing, visual representations, hymn books, and ethnic folk art. The rich intersection of local identities is best understood by examining them in particular social contexts. Diverse groups inhabited these three towns, making them representative of the multicultural region. In New Castle, African-American Methodists, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and English Episcopalians were most prominent. English Quakers and Episcopalians dominated Burlington, but by 1800, they were confronted by increasing numbers of evangelical Baptists and Methodists. The predominantly German town of Easton, still a frontier community in 1770, was divided between Lutheran and German Reformed church members who had frequent contact, both cooperative and violent, with American Indians. This study examines how people who shared common physical landscapes negotiated perceived differences within their communities. While the particular composition of identities differed in each town, all three places participated in a common process of creating an American mainstream after the Revolution.

Notes:

Supervisor: Richard S. Dunn.

Thesis (Ph.D. in History) -- University of Pennsylvania, 1996.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 97-12991.

OCLC:

187469427