Images courtesy New Hampshire Historical Society
HIS 410-S1/HIS709-S1
SUMMER INSTITUTE IN LOCAL HISTORY:
EVERYDAY LIFE IN EARLY AMERICA
Reading Guide
Brown, Jerald E. The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane, 1718-1806:A New Hampshire Man and His World
Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000.
Background
History courses often emphasize the extraordinary events and the “great men” of the past, privileging the study of change
across time and place. This course differs, seeking to understand instead the ordinary rituals and rhythms and the “common people”
of the past, focusing on the study of continuity across time and place. This approach, which first emerged during the late 1960s,
has been called “history from the bottom up” or the New Social History. Jerald Brown’s study of Samuel Lane’s journals,
complemented by the material culture of Strawbery Banke Museum, offer a rich trove of material for our exploration of the
everyday and the common, of continuity amidst change.
Consider Lane’s life amidst the news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775. “This course of
events, however disturbing, had little effect on the rhythm of life in Stratham,” Brown writes (Brown, Samuel Lane, 63).
For most people, we are reminded, the ordinary spring cycles of planting, childbirth, and town meetings were the driving themes of life, regardless of the extraordinary events that made up the news—and later the History—of their times.
Questions
1. Historiography
— How did Brown come to write this book?
— What are the major primary sources from which Brown designed this study of Lane’s life and times?
— What does this tell about how historians of early America work?
— Why did Brown use Samuel Lane as a representative example of everyday life in early America?
(See Priscilla Lane Moore Tapley’s Forward (vii-ix) and Donna Belle Garvin’s Editor’s Acknowledgements”
2. Introduction
— Why does Garvin begin with Lane’s 1793 Thanksgiving prayer? What themes of everyday life are we alerted to look for in the book? (Brown, Samuel Lane, xv)
Issues of time and place:
— How did Samuel Lane’s concepts of time shape the rhythms of everyday life for his family?
— Consider how his days, weeks, months, seasons, and years were structured
— To what degree were these structures under the control of Lane himself or of external forces?
— How did Samuel Lane’s concepts of place influence his sense of identity and of loyalty?
— Was his sense of identity primarily that of local, state, or national affiliation, or of something else entirely?
3. Chapter 1, “Mastering a Trade” (Issues of Work)
— How did the need to “master a trade” influence the early years of Lane’s life?
— How did Lane’s concepts of “mastering a trade” shape everyday life for him?
— How did Lane’s trade influence issues of family and community for him?
4. Chapter 2, “Shaping Community” (Issues of Community Relationships)
Knowledge:
— How did Lane construct his community relationships as “a life of service?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 45)
— Why were writing and surveying such important skills in early America? How did Lane come to learn the “art and mystery” of writing and “to Cypher and Survey?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 46)
— How did the need to “master a trade” influence the early years of Lane’s life?
Religion: (Brown, Samuel Lane, 64-83)
— How did Samuel Lane’s religious concepts influence the rhythms of everyday life?
— How did his membership in the church converge with his participation in town affairs?
— How did the extraordinary happening of the Great Awakening complicate the ordinary flow of religious practice in Lane’s life?
— How did the Stratham community go about the business of building a new meetinghouse? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 72)
Place:
— How did Samuel Lane’s concepts of place influence his sense of identity and of loyalty?
— Was his sense of identity primarily that of local, state, or national affiliation, or of something else entirely?
5. Chapter 3, “Exchanging Commodities” (Issues of Economy and Exchange)
— How was Lane’s life interwoven in networks of exchange, locally and within the Atlantic community?
— What do we make of the Lanes’ “family-based economy, in which all members contributed to building the household’s resources?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 105)
— How did Lane’s attempt to find “safe investments that maintained their value and served as a means for passing wealth on to succeeding generations?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 123)
— How did Lane respond to “a challenging variety of currencies, fluctuating widely in value” across time and place? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 131)
6. Chapter 4, “Building Continuity” (Issues of Family and Legacy)
— Why was it that land “above all else . . . the asset around which Samuel Lane’s life and that of his family revolved,” yet “individual farms . . . could never be self-sufficient” and “necessity forced farmers like Samuel to enter the world of trade?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 139)
— How was it that “diversified land holdings offered a flexibility critical to a farm family’s security?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 141)
— Why was “the mere survival of cattle in the harsh New Hampshire climate the farmer’s overriding concern? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 155)
— How did the cycles of planting and harvesting structure everyday life in farming communities? (Brown, Samuel Lane, 164)
— In planning for his children’s welfare, why did Lane need to consider “of their families as economic units?” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 184)
My first reaction to the introductory materials of The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane 1718-1806 is how lucky J. Brown must have been to have such a treasure trove of primary materials on which to write his dissertation. I feel that “doing” local history is specifically difficult because of the limit of the resources available. The scarcity and distance between those few documents makes doing local history difficult. Brown’s access to business account books, Lane’s surveyor maps, dowry lists, will, dowry lists, and house contracts and then to have it all in one place is extraordinarily lucky or smart on his part to choose this topic. I was brought back to Ulrich’s A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 and how difficult it must have been to write that book based on the tidbits from Ballard’s Diary. So historians of local history must take the tidbits or in Brown’s case the cache and supplement it with more formal documents like census records, customs files, and contemporary newspapers to pull the information together into an understandable history. Local historians work is really detective work. They try to find enough small pieces to be able to put together the whole puzzle, but each new document bring ups more questions and leads to follow so it must feel like the work is never really complete. The mere availability of Lane family papers makes Samuel Lane’s life representative of everyday life in Early America. The records that give the greatest insight into the daily life of average citizens such as diaries and personal household papers are rare. For as much complaining as I and other historians do about so much of our history being told from the top down, the reality is it was the wealthy classes that kept the best personal records and appeared more in the public records. So even though Lane was not the wealthiest in the area, not a member of the elite classes, he was comfortable enough. He had enough time daily to keep his almanac because he was not manually tending his farm and his business alone. He was secure enough to support a large family, or to hire out work, or to own slave(s) or some combination of all of these to do some of the most time consuming work on a farm of that day, thus freeing him up to keep wonderful records of his business and his life. Local history is based on the people who left the best records; they by default become the representatives and examples of their time.
ReplyDeleteRachael,
ReplyDeleteYou’ve offered both an astute observation of the opportunities and challenges of local history as well as a nice analysis that the crux of our work immerses us in a broad range of sources. These can be roughly categorized as the documents (print culture) and artifacts (material culture).
Other thoughts, folks?
Dane Morrison
Professor of Early American History
Department of History
Salem State College
352 Lafayette St.
Salem, MA 01970
Thank you Rachel--you will enjoy visiting Sam Lane's Stratham "world" next Tuesday. Adding to a conversation I had with Rachel Kaye yesterday, as we delve into Lane, consider the areas of tension and controversy--drama if you will-- in his successful and reasonably comfortable life. Compare with Martha Ballard's (Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale) husband's career as a surveyor.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Dr. Kimberly Alexander
Chief Curator
Strawbery Banke Museum
Sorry if I am being overly studious. Unfortunately teaching HS doesn't offer the intellectualism that I would regularly like so now that I am enrolled in a course, I am excited.
ReplyDeleteThe Thanksgiving prayer represents security. Lane was an old man and in 1793 had lived through some very turbulent an insecure times. In his lifetime he had moved to Stratham at a time when it was still very much the frontier, He had to carve out a farm, and build a business, and start a family. Lane’s identify was based on this family, his farm and his business. He was involved at an obligatory level in local politics and although part of a global economy, his life was focused on his small plot of land and his family and his immediate community. Like most people of his time and today, Samuel Lane worked. His life was centered around his work. His life must have been based on the cycles of that work. The spring and the fall were most likely consumed with maintaining the farm in planting and harvesting, and the summer with surveying and the cold seasons with his shoe and leather business. An industrious man with probably little time to devote to state and national issues directly, he must have been sensitive to the national crisis’s that few people could be immune to even at the local level; religious turmoil as played out in the Great Awakening, The King George’s War and the other French and Indian Wars which led to increased skirmishes with Native peoples must have been very stressful for those like Lane living on the frontier, the series of events of the American Revolution that finally culminated in a War for Independence and finally a new and weak government and an economic crisis. On top of political and economic instability, he must have had the fears of plagues of disease, and had to deal with harsh and changeable New England weather that affects all subsistence farmers and tradesmen. In the first few lines of the prayer he mentions health and peace; clearly he sees these as potential sources of instability. He goes on to be thankful for: his church, no fire and accidents, warmth, food sources, the measure of time, money to pay his debts, tools that make his life easier. Instability has made him appreciative of all that his stable and successful working class life had to offer.
And, underlying the simplicity of Lane’s prayer, we gain some sense of the complications and tensions that underlay early American life. The sites at which the extraordinary events intruded on the “ordinary” rhythms and cycles of seasonality—agricultural, familial, and market—created historical inflection points in which adaptation was not just possible, but often necessary. Or, were they?
ReplyDeleteWe see this again, in Brown’s observation of Lane’s life amidst the news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775. “This course of events, however disturbing, had little effect on the rhythm of life in Stratham,” Brown writes (Brown, Samuel Lane, 63). So, did the Revolution and War for Independence change the lives of the Lane family?
Hello I thought that I might try to join the conversation...
ReplyDeleteI think the reason these events had "little effect on the rhythm of life in Stratham" is related to the point that "adaptation was not just possible, but often necessary," people didn't really have a choice in the matter. They would have to change in order to continue their daily routines. So in that sense yes, people would have had to adapt their ways of life to the rising prices and the threat of war etc... at least they would if they wanted to remain somewhat stable in times of general instability, but this would only cause a slight hitch in the "rhythm of life" before things settled back to something akin to normal. People have been adapting to change throughout history and as I understand it people in Samuel Lane's time period really weren't all that different from people today. For example, America is at war, we are in some sort of financial depression, and battles over immigration are raging at the borders, but for me, the only thing that seems relevant is the lesson plan I'm creating for my camp tomorrow. (sad but true) Yes I'm worried about the job market being scarce and the threat of instability and war and I've had to adapt my general outlook because of it, but I, like those in Samuel Lane's time period, have adapted to these changes in my own way. (and now rarely think about these changes) So even though the Lanes' lives might have changed somewhat due to the war and other national events these changes would likely seem far away from their local happenings, making them appear less effective on a day to day basis.
In short, people are usually wrapped up in their own lives with local problems trumping national. Hence the rhythm of daily life remains largely undisturbed by national events until it hits the local level.
Sorry If I rambled... but hopefully that makes some sense!
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ReplyDeleteHey Rachel, you must have been reading my mind! I was going to post practically the same thing - about how we are generally concerned with the larger world when it directly impacts our own routines. Even in WWII, when so many families had members actively involved overseas, still daily concerns were about whether one had enough ration points to buy a winter coat or enough gas to visit Grandma.
ReplyDeleteApparetnly Stratham was the most loyalist New Hampshire town - a majority of people sided with the patriots, but the margin was slimmer than elsewhere. There was concern over the wording of the Declaration of Independence which might lead to war; still, the town did vote in favor of it. But the fact of this uncertainty over might have led to less fervent interest in the war....or the very pragmatism of the citizens may have led to their disinclination to get more involved. Perhaps things were working in Stratham, even with whatever taxes and restrictions were improsed by the Crown - perhaps as long as their daily lives were not affected, as long as they could feed their families and have money over for extras, political considerations were just not that important to them.
And for the record, although I registered here as "Priscilla" my postings carry my Yahoo name - "GrammiePoet" - which is a bit confusing!
I would like to see the business transactions of the family during the War for Independence. Soldiers require shoes/boots and leather goods (bags, saddles etc.) I thought I read (but now cannot find) that Stratham sent 30 young men to Concord at the outbreak of the war. I would hope they were sent well outfitted.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading chapters “Mastering a Trade” and “Shaping a Community,” there is only one word to describe Samuel Lane: ambitious. As an apprentice in his father’s cordwainer’s shop he apparently takes it upon himself to learn to tanner leather as well. “My father seeing I could make Lether, let me tan Some for him the next year.” (Brown, Samuel Lane, 13) I am sure Joshua Lane was thrilled to have Samuel master the tanning trade with 75% of his tanning needs paid to an outside source prior to Samuel learning to tan.(Brown, Samuel Lane, 13) Isn’t this the basis of big business today. Start making a product then slowly start buying the businesses that make the parts of your product and finally start buying the mines that pull the natural resources needed to make your product. Thus controlling all aspects of production and increasing your profit. He was quite the savvy business man. Samuel Lane’s motto seemed to be: diversify. Not only is he a master cordwainer with not only the knowledge to make shoes but his father also taught him the accounting end of the business as well, and a self-taught tanner but then he also learns to survey land from Samuel palmer’s school of “Survey and Navigation.” It is clear to see why Samuel became such a respected member of Stratham society. With all his skills he was indispensible. It seems with all the cordwainer’s Joshua and Samuel were pushing through their “apprentice programs” that there would be quite a number of shoemakers in the area. The surveying seems a rarer skill; and as the “settled” towns grew the demand for more land on the frontier was needed for sons of early families (Samuel’s family situation was an example of this), thus a surveyor was always in demand in Early American Life.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was researching something like this a few years ago, I found that the cordwainer is far more than a shoemaker - he is a leatherworker and as such, makes all sorts of things in addition to shoes: straps and belts, gloves and aprons, leatherbound trunks, etc. In the Puddledock area of Portsmouth, as factorymade shoes were being advertised in shoe shops, the number of cordwainers actually increased! But other changes at the time explained why this would be: there was an iron foundry where protective clothing for workers would be needed. There was a stage coach which would have carried passengers' luggage strapped to the roof so covering a wooden truck with leather would make it more durable. What I took from this was that the cordwainers were more versatile and could use their skills in a variety of ways; as there was less call for handmade shoes there was more call for other worked leather goods.
ReplyDeleteLane's Thanksgiving prayer begins with a reference to his early morning arousal as is typical of a farmer. Lane is thankful for many things that allow him to sustain his livelihood--his health, his home and farm, his land and animals, and his tools. This prayer allows the reader to note the most important aspects of Lane's life. Foremost, he values his health and that of his family and religion. He also values the material objects that allow him to provide an income for his family. Lane's land and farm, his animals, and the tools and utensils necessary for him to perform his work as a farmer, tanner, and shoemaker were noted with gratitude in his Thanksgiving prayer. Lane also notes many commodities for which he was grateful that he was able to acquire by trade. The themes of everyday life such as family, faith, agriculture, trade, and labor presented in this Thanksgiving prayer are themes that represent life in early America.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the second question, Brown's reconstruction of Lane's life would serve as an outstanding primary source. The many letters, notes, and monetary debt charts would be very influential in depicting what life was like during this time period. The story of his accomplished life could easily be taught to middle or secondary students using primary source analysis, a time line of his life ( noting his consistent investment in real estate)as well as video clips to display the farms, homes, clothing, etc from this time period. The fact that there are numerous documents that have been preserved from Samuel Lane would be crucial in the construction of any type of lesson/unit plan on this topic. In addition, a power point along with other types of visual learning may just be the most superb way in teaching this material. (aside from a trip to an actual museum or plantation) Immersing students in as many primary source materials as one can find from this time period would be the best way to foster a learning environment centered around this time period.
In regards to the second question, Brown's reconstruction of Lane's life would serve as an outstanding primary source. The many letters, notes, and monetary debt charts would be very influential in depicting what life was like during this time period. Brown does an excellent job of telling the entire story of Samuel Lane from the time he was being trained by his father, to his last entry when his body was withering away. Continuing, Brown did an excellent job in his book in explaining how Samuel Lane continued to climb the economic ladder, and also how he valued all types of family and seemed to always put his family first. The story of his accomplished life could easily be taught to middle or secondary students using primary source analysis, a time line of his life ( noting his consistent investment in real estate)as well as video clips to display the farms, homes, clothing, etc from this time period. The fact that there are numerous documents that have been preserved from Samuel Lane would be crucial in the construction of any type of lesson/unit plan on this topic. In addition, a power point along with other types of visual learning may just be the most superb way in teaching this material. (aside from a trip to an actual museum or plantation) Immersing students in as many primary source materials as one can find from this time period would be the best way to foster a learning environment centered around this time period.
And, this from [franwood62@yahoo.com]:
ReplyDeleteMy two cents:
By starting his book on Samuel Lane with Lane’s ‘Thanksgiving prayer’ the author, Jerald Brown, is making a point about the Historiographical method he is using. The book is not about the doing of ‘great men’ but an exercise in ‘history from the bottom up’. Even considering the amount of written record in Lane’s own hand, Brown had the none-to-easy task of placing all of that with the larger context of his world, and making that world accessible to the modern reader. Such is the difficulty of doing ‘social history’ and local history in particular.
Previous posts mentioned how little life in Stratham changed at the start of the Revolution. Years ago I talked with my Grandparents about the Great Depression. They lived through it and I was expecting to hear tales of bread lines and boiling old boots for soup. But in fact, living in rural Salisbury, MA life hadn’t changed all that much. Life was a struggle before, during and after the depression. The interesting thing about local history, and what makes the study of it so compelling is how much peoples experiences can vary from the larger context which we’ve all come to know.
Lastly, the division of Brown’s book into chapters dealing with different aspects of Lane’s life allows one to focus on a particular area of interest. A chronological summary of Lane’s life rather, would leave the work of distilling all that to the reader / student. We can see a similar organization in the book on Sarah Goodwin by Margaret Whyte Kelly.
First two questions for reading guide:
ReplyDelete-The manner that Samuel Lane lists out each and every item is thankful for illustrates how careful he was to have a full grasp of the local world around him. He mentions the liberties granted to him by his new country; however, he appears to avoid focusing on far-ranging actions. Lane, like his contemporaries, focused on what he saw in front of him, and took care to not lose his bearings upon his own life.
-I work in a middle school, and I would find it difficult to introduce this as a text for use in that school setting. If I was going to use this book where I work, I would use it as a component of an overall team project upon early colonial life. The math teacher could do a lesson on area (surveying); the science teacher could further the student’s understanding of crops and cattle; and, the history and English teachers could work to develop an understanding of the background of Samuel Lane’s text, as well as interpreting what his actions meant and his ambitions for himself and his family.
Historiography: What this book told me about early American work is that it cannot be summed up in a single statement: these people developed their homes and their lives to be independent; however, they also frequently traded, interacted and relied upon the skills, labor and tools of others to survive.
Introduction: Reading through Lane’s surveying expeditions in the contested lands around the Merrimack River, I expected to hear him form an opinion or give evidence of bias towards either the Massachusetts or New Hampshire colony. By these readings, Lane simply did his duty – to survey as accurately as his ability would allow, and paid no mind, nor spent his breathe debating, the bickering of the two colonies over who had governance over the lands. Lane was not oblivious to the swirling debate; however, he set a course of action that “his own place was on the banks of the Squamscott River, (xxxiii)” detached from outside spheres.
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ReplyDeleteMastering a Trade: I failed to see any mention of Samuel Lane speculating upon his career when he was a child. He appeared to easily enough fit into his early apprenticeships of a shoe maker; yet, as he developed his own industry as a youth, he had an eye from improving his father’s, and eventually his own, business. He reduced the overhead through introducing and then expanding the family’s ability to tan hides, as well as traveling throughout the region to sell goods. Lane spent a considerable amount of his early years trading goods, both his own and goods from other sources, to develop a network of other colonists he developed relationships. His trips to destinations such as Portsmouth included stops in taverns, which no doubt he used to gain insights into local needs.
ReplyDeleteShaping Community:
Lane’s ability to survey is remarkable for his feats to catalog and delineate tracts of land in terrain that was frequently uncooperative, but looking at Lane’s life as a while, his development of this skill under such circumstances is not surprising. Due to his schooling, as well as his determination to succeed in the face of adversity (he transcribes the motto “necessity is the mother of invention” in his journals), it is understandable how Lane used his moderate education, the few mathematical tools at his disposal, and his ability to strategies optimal solutions for situations to attain his goals.
In regards to the situation surrounding the Great Awakening, Lane tried to walk the middle path; he wanted to accommodate the more radical folk favoring this wave of religious faith, but he did not want to have the system of worship disrupted for those who were not entranced during the Great Awakening. By this barometer, Lane acted as a moderate, independent entity who tried to acquiesce the wants of both sides while avoiding becoming on the “side” of their camp.
Exchanging Commodities: More than any other investment, Samuel Lane purchased land. Lane avoided keeping his wealth in government issued money due to the rise and fall of availability and the value of local currencies. His surveying trips also appeared to give him insights and opportunities to purchase land he deemed as worthy of investment. Frequently, this investment also provided Lane with goods (salt hay) as well as other opportunities (grazing land).
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to note that Lane traded with people during high times and low; when someone couldn’t pay Lane for goods he offered, he was willing to have them purchase the goods on credit, without penalty or demanding interest. Perhaps Lane’s early, lean years reminded him that people sometimes ended up in less than desirable situations of no fault of their own, or he may have seen these benevolent trade practices as a way to invest in the people around him.
Building Community: In the simplest, most basic examination, Samuel could have lived as a self-sufficient and isolated life. He possessed enough talents and skills to be an island of his own; however, his goal was not simply to survive. The relations, trade and interdependence that Lane developed through his trade and varied professions allowed him to create a better life for him, and mostly importantly to him, for future generations.
Lane’s aggressive purchasing of land allowed him to invest his money in one of the most stable commodities of his time, but also it allowed him to map out a set of land holdings that his sons could sustain themselves and future generations upon. Perhaps his forward thinking regarding setting aside enough land for each of this three sons allowed the family to avoid bitterness and squabbling over the farm during and after Samuel Lane’s life.
Jerald E. Brown purposely begins his book, The Years of the Life of Samuel Lane with Lane's Thanksgiving prayer. Before opening up this book one may have developed presumed notions of who Samuel Lane was. Looking at the years in which he lived (1718-1806), the reader can already picture a man who lived during the Revolutionary War and resided in New Hampshire and therefore probably had a farm. By reading Lane's Thanksgiving prayer first before Brown divulges into Lane's life story, the reader is able to look into a very specific life style in which Lane is so very thankful for. Without turning another page the reader learns that Lane had special civil and religious privileges, a house, a barn, food, clothes, a family, and a watch. The reader can now build upon their previous presumptions that Lane must have lived a comfortable life and seemed to have been a distinguished member of his community. The things in which Lane is grateful for are clues into the themes of early American life we will explore this coming week. Because Lane so stresses his gratuity of his domestic life and everything that comes with it (barn, corn, sheep) it can be assumed that Lane was a man of great success due to his hard-working life style. Being thankful for his watch is a big indication that he must of been a man that lived by the clock and probably worked from sun rise to sun down.
ReplyDeleteI see more than a lesson plan or a website. I see a whole interactive museum exhibit (maybe even part of a living history museum) engaging the visitor's all five senses with the primary materials that Brown has shown his readers in his book. I would display scenes of Lane's life: his house, land, church, meeting house, tools, notebooks just to name a few. The exhibit would be composed of multi-dimensional elements of notebooks displayed on a desk to a mock boat that Lane would have used to get to the Shoal Islands for trade to a mock pulpit of a meeting house. Visitors could experience the life of Lane not only by his occupations but by his civic, family, and religious duties. The primary materials Brown used to compose this book would be a great asset for a research paper on as broad of a subject as Early American Life or Surveyors of New Hampshire in Early America.