A New England Town Sparknotes

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Lockridge Essay In today’s society, American citizens tend to believe that America has been, “American” since the day that Christopher Columbus set foot in the Bahamas. This is a myth that has been in our society for a multitude of years now. In A New England Town by Kenneth A. Lockridge, he proves that America was not always democratic. Additionally, he proves that America has not always been “American”, by presenting the town of Dedham in 1635. Lockridge presents this town through the course of over one hundred years, in that time many changes happened as it made its way to a type of democracy. In general, people believe that America has always been a democracy, but that myth is dispelled by Lockridge with the introduction of Dedham. …show more content…

Or did it start off as something else? Before those questions are answered, let’s define what “American” really is. American from the definition of Merriam-Webster is “a person born, raised, or living in the U.S”, this is very important because America was not founded until July 4th, 1776. The year that this book takes place is roughly between 1636 to 1736 give or take a few years on either end. This means that nobody during the place of the book is in any way technically American as the United States of America was not yet a country. While this is true, Lockridge states that the most American thing about the policies of Dedham “was the intensity of their utopianism” which could be mean that while nothing was truly American yet, Dedham had some characteristics that are classified under that (22). The utopianism mentioned is present because Dedham is puritan and a peasant utopia. Puritans believed that there was an agreement with God in which they tried to improve the Anglican church. When the peasants and puritans were together they decided to form a utopia that was perfect in all ways. The utopia grew and was successful for a while, but when the Puritans began to deny people from the church membership it began to separate and tear at the utopia. To conclude, Dedham did not begin as an American styled town and it started off as a …show more content…

Over the years, Dedham’s social development went from being a very community driven with little leaders, to having voting and set leaders that could change after every voting cycle. Lockridge states that events that brought an “active democratic behavior to Dedham” were the ones that tended to also destroy and rid of the consensual community (138). This was the result of Dedham’s social but also Political progression and development over the hundred years. It proves that over time Dedham would progressively become more Democratic and in turn also became more American. Additionally, as time went on the religion shifted from the Puritans to a more open environment where different religions were more common. In the beginning, the puritans were tied to the community and were organized around “autonomy, exclusiveness, and unity” which allowed for growth between religion and the social side of Dedham (24). This tie to the community meant that religion was very strong and very intertwined into the society. Over the hundred years that were observed by Lockridge. Dedham went through many changes to their Political, social, and religious ways as they developed into new religions, new politics and new ways of being

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