I'm not sure that anyone would be truly interested in reading this, but I thought I would post it anyway. It is an assignment I recently completed for a graduate class I'm currently taking. Perhaps it will float your boat, especially if you find early American history interesting.
Review of: Commerce and Culture: The Maritime Communities of Colonial
Massachusetts, 1690-1750. By Christine Leigh Heyrman. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984. Pp. 431.)
Christine Leigh Heyrman’s book, Commerce and Culture: The Maritime Communities of Colonial Massachusetts, 1690-1750, is an impressive study of two New England seaside towns in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Heyrman presents her discussion from social, cultural, and economic perspectives. The book, published in 1984 by W.W. Norton & Company, contradicts widely held notions concerning the interactions of religion and community with commercial success and modernity. Heyrman contends that, rather than dissolving religious and community bonds, capitalism in New England strengthened Puritan traditions of belief and societal organization. The Massachusetts towns covered in this analysis, Gloucester and Marblehead, rose into prominence as fishing villages. Developing communal cohesion after earlier periods of disorganization, these Puritan enclaves defied expectations that historians have ascribed to them. Heyrman herself expected to find a diminished role for spirituality and provincialism as Gloucester and Marblehead experienced steep economic success; yet, Heyrman’s research, drawing significantly from primary sources including tax records, sermons, and diaries, illustrates that a conservative and fundamentalist reaction to change occurred. Puritanism flourished during this period, demonstrated by increasing church memberships and interest in religious revivals. Acceptance of all religious traditions, however, did not come to pass. Quakers and Anglicans, perceived as outsiders in both communities, suffered myriad discriminatory episodes in Glouchester and Marblehead. Despite their contact with the outside world, and contrary to previous viewpoints of historians, these Puritans became more insular and less tolerant of competing opinions. While Heyrman defends her argument with appropriate primary and secondary sources, the book’s thesis may not translate universally among New England fishing communities. Claiming to represent viewpoints throughout society, this book relies too heavily on evidence gained from elite New Englanders to assume that it applies to the “middling” classes as well.
Essex County records have provided for much of Heyrman’s argument. For example, the “Distribution of Real and Personal Wealth Among Glouchester and Marblehead Decedents, 1690-1770,” a table derived from Essex Probate Files, supports the claim of a more egalitarian distribution of wealth in Glouchester. Both median and mean estate values rose in Glouchester, suggesting that the financial successes of the town extended to most members of the population. In Marblehead, however, these measurements of economic stature declined during this period. Evidence from the Essex County Court of Common Pleas upholds another view; namely, that fewer civil litigations in Glouchester, compared with Marblehead and Salem, indicate strong community ties persisting throughout the eighteenth century in that town. Heyrman uses these findings to describe the litigiousness of Marblehead. While Marblehead civil cases most often featured wealthy plaintiffs and poorer defendants, “all classes made liberal use of the law to sue one another with staggering frequency.” Other primary documents, which include diaries, church sermons, and influential books such as those by Cotton Mather and Nathaniel Morton, offer perspectives directly from the actors in Heyrman’s narrative.
Central to Heyrman’s thesis is that residents of Glouchester and Marblehead clung to religious tradition and belief, despite the push towards secularism that many have widely assumed inevitable. In “Status and the Social Order,” Heyrman recounts how affiliation with one’s parish mirrored his status in Glouchester society. Preferred seating, deference in matters of church politics, and other senses of propriety accompanied the elites. Interestingly, parish leaders remained in their privileged positions even after other members of the community achieved greater wealth. Family ties and tradition, rather than the completely objective pound, determined one’s place. Preferential treatment in Gloucester is evident from examining the Middle Street meetinghouse’s seating reorganization plan. Captain Jabez Baker, one of Gloucester’s wealthiest men, would have commanded a pew in the front row had the meetinghouse’s seating been based merely on money. However, “the placement committee awarded this newcomer from Beverly only half a pew in the Middle Street meetinghouse, a seat worth just six pounds sterling,” while established residents with lesser estates had better luck.
Rather than adopting secular behaviors, citizens of Glouchester and Marblehead embraced outward displays of religiosity during this period. The outpouring of interest in both villages during the first Great Awakening proves this point. In Gloucester, reaction to the Awakening was strongest in two areas of town: Gloucester harbor and the Third Parish. Heyrman’s explanation for these sections of particular fervor is that they were susceptible to extremism, given the stressful First Parish separation. She also suggests a link between the Awakening and commercial importance. While the harbor had long served the fishing trade, “the Third Parish was quickly becoming a second center of the local fishing trade.” Local politics and geography did not determine an ardent response to the Awakening in Marblehead, however. Interestingly, the residents most taken by the New Light there were lower- and middle-class women. Heyrman discounts the view, however, that women of the middling classes were ushering in “an early stirring of social and political egalitarianism.” Otherwise, the gains made by women during this episode would have permanently altered Marblehead society.
Another critical element of Commerce and Culture is the intense opposition to Puritans, Catholics, Episcopalians, and any other outsiders lurking in Gloucester and Marblehead. Rival religious adherents posed a threat to Anglican society. Not only did they offer differing sets of philosophy of faith, these outside religions created “not just an alternative to the Congregational church but also to the local community itself.” Non-natives, whether secular or religious, offered entirely oppositional worldviews. In this context, according to Heyrman’s thesis, New Englanders turned inward as a means of combating this affront to traditional sensibilities.
Heyrman’s book, well-researched and justified, is a mostly believable piece. However, given the lack of perspective from poorer contemporaries, it is somewhat weakened. Of course, diaries and other literary works of “middling” folk are hard to find. Yet, critical questions remain surrounding Gloucester and Marblehead. Were all Puritan citizens of Gloucester united regarding the unity of the town? According to Heyrman, the diary of James Parsons indicates that “townspeople maintained a sense of obligation to each other.” Does this “sense of obligation” apply to members of the upper classes in Gloucester? Would a poor fisherman, for example, feel this bond with a wealthier merchant? We do not know. Heyrman draws the conclusion from Gloucester’s relative economic egalitarianism that everyone in town considered himself of equal importance. A sense of togetherness pervaded, according to her analysis. Yet, if Gloucester were as tight-knit as Heyrman would have us believe, why did six years pass before the western separation controversy subsided? Heyrman reports that “westerners implemented a policy of persuasion” as they attempted peacefully to encourage others in the town’s environs to adopt their position. Members of a truly unified community, one might suspect, would recognize and meet the needs of others in their midst, especially if such hardships resulted due to uncontrollable circumstances like geography. Perspective from a non-elite, then, might illuminate a more precise sense of Gloucester’s collective ties. Marblehead’s social climate, on the other hand, was far more complicated than that of Gloucester. As Heyrman relates, Marblehead did not experience an increase of average estate values. In fact, as civil litigation increased, holdings of wealth for average citizens decreased. Primary sources from Marblehead’s merchant class, religious elite, and public documentation supply Heyrman’s evidence in this segment of her discussion. Again, had more data from the fishermen, shoremen, artisans, mariners, and farmers entered the examination, a far more exact picture would emerge.
Despite the failure to include a completely balanced point of view, Heyrman has put forth a fascinating and illuminating work. Contradicting a formerly prevalent perspective of colonial historians, Commerce and Culture shows how capitalism and modernity fell short of revolutionizing New England’s Puritan society. While these findings may not extend to all maritime communities, Heyrman’s work in this area has contributed greatly to the understanding of this period.
