New England
Economics, Government, Religion, and Culture.
C U L T U R E
Religion, education, and the arts played roles in New England’s culture.
Work was usually done on colonial farms.
Both parents cared for children, but mothers cooked, made butter and cheese, preserved food, spun yarn, made clothes, and tended chicken and cows.
Fathers worked in fields, built barns, houses, and fences, while. mothers worked in fields next to their husbands.
Men were the formal heads of the households, managing the farms and representing the family in community affairs.
Women could attend church meetings, but didn’t have the privileges of speaking, voting, or serving as clergy.
Education was valued and parents taught children how to read write.
School systems were set up to make sure that everyone had the ability to read and study the Bible.
E C O N O M I C S
- People have used the waterpower from the streams on their land to run mills for grinding grain or sawing lumber.
- Some women who have made enough cloth, garments, candles, or soap are able to sale or trade the products.
- Skilled craftspeople that were blacksmiths, shoemakers, furniture makers, gunsmiths, metalsmiths,and printers were attracted to larger towns.
- Shipbuilding was an important part of the industry.
- The wood for the ships came the forests of New England and was transported through rivers to the shipyards and in coastal towns.
G O V E R N M E N T
- The English colonists brought ideas about the government that had been developing in England for a long amount of time.
- Connecticut and Rhode Island, were established by settlers. These colonists elected their own governors and all so the members for the legislature. Great Britain had the right to approve the governor, but the governor could not fathom the acts of the legislature.
- The proprietary colonies Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were once ruled by proprietors. Proprietors were free to to rule as they wished. The upper house of the legislature, while as colonist elected the lower house.
- By the1760s Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,North Carolina, and Virginia, were all knowed as royal colonies. Britain ruled all royal colonies. Each king appointed a governor and a council, known as the upper house. The colonists elected the lower house. The governor and members did what the council told them to do especially when it was about enforcing taxes.
R E L I G I O N
- The great awakening is the name for a religious revival; the great awakning began in the 1720’s because Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and others preach of the need for revival of religious belief Awareness of the importance of religion in people's lives grows.
- As the Puritans migrated from England to the New World, they had a clear vision of what their churches should be like.
- Membership was restricted to those who could present evidence that they had experienced “saving grace.”
- This most often included a compelling description of some extraordinary experience that indicated intimate contact with God.
- Only those who could submit this proof were considered “visible saints” and allowed full membership in the church.
- In the early seventeenth century, however, few were denied membership since leaving England was considered sufficient proof of spiritual purity.
- Puritans led their lives based on a group of strong beliefs.