Common-place › The journal of early American lifeCommon-place: The Journal of early American Life

Vol. 15 No. 4.5 :

Reviews

George Lippard, The Killers: A Narrative of Real Life in Philadelphia, eds. Matt Cohen and Edlie L. Wong. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. 256 pp., $45.

Getting the Gang Back Together

Paul J. Erickson

A welcome new edition of George Lippard’s provocative 1850 novella–

Kyle G. Volk, Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 312 pp., $34.95.

Major Problems in American Democracy

Margot Minardi

Moral Minorities tracks how vocal minorities argued for a place in American democracy.

Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, New World Drama: The Performative Commons in the Atlantic World, 1649-1849. Chapel Hill: Duke University Press, 2014. 368 pp., $26.95.

Performing the Atlantic Commons

Peter P. Reed

“This study presents the kind of creative synthesis and thoughtful working-out of big ideas that will make it required reading. . . “

Susanah Shaw Romney, New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2014. 336 pp., $45.

The Perils of Intimacy

Evan Haefeli

The card catalog in the Amsterdam Municipal Archive is a thing of legend among Dutch historians . . .

La felice victoria

E. Thomson Shields

La felice victoria: Bartolomé de Flores’s A Newly Composed Work, Which Recounts the Happy Victory That God, in His Infinite […]

Vol. 15 No. 4 : Summer 2015

Our new design is a result of a year-long process of community outreach and research, design thinking, web development, and editorial decision making, and we hope you will be pleased with the results.

Portrait, “Mrs. Frances E.W. Harper,” engraving taken from The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &c., Narrating the Hardships, Hair-Breadth Escapes and Death Struggles of the Slaves in their Efforts for Freedom, as Related by Themselves and Others, or Witnessed by the Author, by William Still. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872). Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA.

Lost no More: Recovering Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s* Forest Leaves

Johanna Ortner

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s first book of poems had been considered lost to history for well over one hundred years. Johanna Ortner shares the tale of recovering this incredibly valuable text–and shares the text itself–with the readers of Common-place.

5. Bishop employed engravings common to many editions of Pilgrim’s Progress. Here, he captions the image of Pilgrim dreaming as “moe‘uhane” [“Spirit Sleep”]. Note the European memento mori in the foreground. “Ka Moeuhane A Buniana,” engraving by Anderson in Ka hele malihini ana mai keia ao aku a hiki i kela ao; he olelonane i hoohalikeia me he moeuhane la / na Ioane Buniana, i kakau mua. na Bihopa, i lawe i olelo Hawaii. paiia no ko Amerika Poe Hoolaha Palapala (Honolulu, 1842). Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Pilgrims in Print: Indigenous Readers Encounter John Bunyan

Stephanie Fitzgerald , Bryan Kuwada, and Phillip H. Round

For all its virtues, something was lost in translation.

Roundtable: Nat Fuller's Feast

Editors’ Introduction

This roundtable is part of an ongoing series devoted to “First Person” experiences with early American culture.

Nat Fuller’s Feast

David S. Shields

How does one create memory around an event that has long been lost to history?

Welcome Speech: Chef Kevin Mitchell imagining the words of Chef Nat Fuller

Kevin E. Mitchell

A twenty-first century chef invites guests to enter the spirit of Nat Fuller’s 1865 Reconciliation Banquet.

The Nat Fuller Feast: Together, in Harmony

Kendra Hamilton

Clinton, South Carolina, seems at first blush an unlikely host location for the Nat Fuller Feast.

Unforgettable Fare: Nat Fuller’s Feast at the University of South Carolina

Jane Przybysz

Enacting Nat Fuller’s Feast at the University of South Carolina

A Reflection on the Nat Fuller Feast, April 19th, 2015

Robin Lee Griffith

The descendant of Nat Fuller’s mentor reflects on the 2015 Feast.

Open Letter

Kevin E. Mitchell

An open letter from Chef Kevin Mitchell to Chef Nat Fuller.

Reflection

David S. Shields

David Shields reflects on the legacy of Nat Fuller in the wake of the attack on the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston.

Invitation

An invitation to Common-place readers to create their own events dedicated to reconciliation.

Reviews

Michael Drexler and Ed White, The Traumatic Colonel: The Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the Phantasmatic Aaron Burr. New York: New York University Press, 2014. 288 pp., $24.

Aaron Burr and the United States Racial Imagination

Melissa Adams-Campbell

A review of Michael Drexler and Ed White’s recent collaboration, The Traumatic Colonel: The Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the Phantasmatic Aaron Burr

Pirates and Governors

Casey Sylvia Schmitt

Swashbucklers, rogues, and scoundrels—the legacy of early modern sea rovers in popular culture has made piracy basically synonymous with villainy. […]

At a time when rates of premarital sex were increasing and when print culture depicted the dangers of women’s erotic power, Ryan shows that government authorities particularly focused on containing the dangers of white women’s sexuality within lawful marriage.

Sex and Social Order in Massachusetts

Nora Doyle

Kelly A. Ryan’s work, Regulating Passion: Sexuality and Patriarchal Rule in Massachusetts, 1700-1830, explores the intersections of patriarchal power and […]