History Paper-The Great Awakening

The Great Awakening

FOCUS QUESTION

1) How did the Great Awakening challenge the religious and social structure of British North America?

The first printing press arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1638, at the recently founded Harvard College. It is hard to imagine that this wooden machine could wield enough power to change a culture and affect the history of a place and its people. By the mid-eighteenth century, the existence of printing presses in the colonies helped inform, entertain, and bring American colonists together culturally. We live in the world of instant communication, where the written word has the ability to be dispersed to millions of people instantaneously. However, the force of shared printed materials during the colonial period, and the ideas they conveyed, cannot be underestimated. The printed word provided wide public access to very powerful ideas.

Benjamin Franklin, thought of as the founder of the Enlightenment in America, famously believed in the ability of educated men to gain understanding of the natural world through scientific observation. Via his printing presses and publishing business, Franklin himself did much to spread Enlightenment sensibilities throughout the colonies in the form of a Farmer’s Almanac. The power of the press was also put to use in service of the spread of new religious ideas, such as those espoused during America’s first “Great Awakening,” a religious movement that caught fire in the colonies, in large part due to a literate population, receptive to learning about preachers who challenged the established British churches. They learned about those preachers and their sermons because of the growing access to printed materials from multiple sources, not just the established churches

DOCUMENTS

Document 1 is a video of the operation of a seventeenth-century printing press, a replica of the first printing press in the colonies, established at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1638. Imagine the time and effort to make even one copy of a newspaper or pamphlet and compare that with the ease of “Tweets.”

Document 2 is from Poor Richard’s Almanack. Benjamin Franklin began publishing the almanac, under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, in 1732. By 1753, the date of the attached excerpt, nearly every household in colonial America had a copy. The humorous sayings, advice, and educational information became part of the shared experience in the colonies, due to the availability of printed materials. The fact that Benjamin Franklin was the author and publisher of these almanacs helped spread Enlightenment sensibility, reason, and values.

Document 3 is an excerpt of a sermon given by Jonathan Edwards in 1741 that was later transcribed and distributed as pamphlets, allowing the words of Edwards to reach far beyond his congregation.

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Read Chapters 4-7 of the textbook.

2) Watch the YouTube clip Document 1,

3) Analyze Document 2, Poor Richard’s Almanack

4) Analyze Document 3, Sinners in the Hands of an angry GOD

5) Answer the questions that follow by Saturday by 11:59pm. You can post your comments to other students until Sunday by 11:59pm. Review the Welcome Message for more info on discussion requirements. Be sure to label your answers.

6) The discussion should reflect your own words. I use software to detect plagiarism, so do your own work and if you use ANY information from the internet it is better to be safe than sorry, so cite it. If you use the internet for help, with few exceptions like Wikipedia.org, questionable sources can be avoided by searching on reputable websites, especially those that end in .edu, .org or .gov. All other websites should be carefully considered and the information critically evaluated and questioned.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER IN THE DISCUSSION BOARD

1) What characterizes the Enlightenment movement of 17th and 18th century Europe and America?

2) What is the purpose of Document 1?

3) What was the purpose of Document 2?

4) What is or are the main points in Document 3?

Document 1

Seventeenth-Century-Style Printing

Peabody Museum YouTube video of a17th Century Printing Press (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.Uploaded on July 27, 2011

“The first printing press in North America might have looked like this wooden replica. It was housed at Harvard College’s 17th-century Indian College and operated by at least one Native American, James the Printer.”

Source: Video from Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University, Copyright 2011

Document 2

A page from Poor Richard’s Almanack

Source: Page from Poor Richardʼs Almanack Poor Richard’s Almanac: Library of Congress

Document 3

Sinners in the Hands of an angry GOD.

DEUT. XXXII. 35.

—Their Foot shall slide in due Time —

IN this Verse is threatned the Vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, that were God’s visible People, and lived under Means of Grace; and that, notwithstanding all God’s wonderful Works that he had wrought towards that People, yet remained, as is expressed, ver. 28. void of Counsel, having no Understanding in them; and that, under all the Cultivations of Heaven, brought forth bitter and poisonous Fruit; as in the two Verses next preceding the Text.

The Expression that I have chosen for my Text, Their Foot shall slide in due Time; seems to imply the following Things, relating to the Punishment and Destruction that these wicked Israelites were exposed to.

That the Reason why they are not fallen already, and don’t fall now, is only that God’s appointed Time is not come. For it is said, that when that due Time, or appointed Time comes, their Foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall as they are inclined by their own Weight. God won’t hold them up in these slippery Places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very Instant, they shall fall into Destruction; as he that stands in such slippery declining Ground on the Edge of a Pit that he can’t stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.

Source: Edwards, Jonathan and Smolinski, Reiner , Ed., “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th, 1741.” (1741). Electronic Texts in American Studies. Paper 54. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=etas