from earliest days to a new nation

7/27/2019 From Earliest Days to a New Nation

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From the Earliest Days

(Prehistory - 1750)to

A New Nation(1750 – 1850)

Lic. Patricia Claure R.

LAEL / UMSS

2013



History of the Time• Land is sacred.

• Lives organized around cyclesof nature.

• Folktales, fables, sacred

stories.

• Speechmaking, storytelling.

• Age of exploration (Spanish,

Portuguese, Europeans)

• 1st successful Englishsettlement in Jamestown –

Virginia in 1607.

• Puritans settled in Plymouth –

Massachusetts in 1620.



History of the Time

• American colonists angry.

• Fought with British to defeatFrance.

• Boston tea party in 1773.

•

Intolerable Acts of 1774 topunish colonies.

• British opened fire in 1775.

• Declaration of Independence

in 1776.

• Constitution of the United

States in 1787.

•

George Washington 1stresident in 1789.



Life of the Time

•

Colonists in Virginia boughtslaves.

• In Pennsylvania 1st

antislavery protest.

• Puritans believed that the

Universe was God- centered.

• Favored plain, dark clothing.

Native Americans and slavespracticed their own beliefs.



Life of the Time• Andrew Jackson (7th

president) the people´spresident.

• Democracy was hot topic,

didn´t appy to all Americans.

• 1st women´s rights

convention.

• Roads were still primitive, but

developed trails, bridges,steamboats, railroads.

• Wealthy Americans

influenced by English and

French styles.



Literature of the Time• Fliers and pamphlets

advertising the NewWorld.

• Religious books like

translation of the Bible

and hymn book Bay PsalmBook.

• 1st colonial newspaper in

1704.

• Journals and diaries were

kept by puritans to reflect

and examine own spiritual

development.



Literature of the Time

• Sarah Josepha Hale

was editor of Ladies´Magazine in

1828 and of Godey´s

Lady´s Book in 1837.

• Poems for our

children in 1830.

• Broadside were sheets

of paper containingvarious kinds of

writing.



Literary Trends: Plain Style• Plain Style refers to a

writing style and literarygenre of Puritan

Americans. Poetry and

prose was very

straightforward anddirect and mostly

revolved around religious

themes. The style was

focused on directlyaddressing subjects and

speaking directly to

theological ideas and

morals.



Plain Style vs. Ornate Style

Plain Style vs. Ornate Style

Ornate Style Plain Style Shabby but beloved, my

shoes house my feet asthey carry me from place

to place.

My shoes are old and

brown, worn out butcomfortable for walking.

My pen spills its blood

as it brings words to life. The pen with which I

write often leaks ink.



Literary Trends: Romanticism• Romanticism emerged as

movement, focused on

individualism,nationalism, a love

of nature and the supernatural.

Found in poetry and prose.

• The essay has three major

divisions: the importance of self-reliance (paragraphs 1-17), self-

reliance and the individual

(paragraphs 18-32), and self-

reliance and society (paragraphs

33-50). As a whole, it promotes

self-reliance as an ideal, even a

virtue, and contrasts it with

various modes of dependence or

conformity.



Literary Trends: Dark Romanticism• The grotesque, the gloomy, the

morbid, the fantastic wereembraced and shaped into the

most popular sub-genre of

American literature. Dark

Romantics acknowledged theevil of man and the horror of

evil. Like the Romantics the

Dark Romantics valued

intuition and emotion over logic and reason and saw

symbols, spiritual truths, and

signs in nature and everyday

events.



Literary Trends: Transcendentalists

• Less fictional and more

focused on the author.

• Protest against politics

and culture.

• Encouraged a break fromall of societal norms and

conveniences.

•

Reliance on self andnature.

• Individual can transform

the world.



Interesting Facts

• Approximate number of Native Americans

living in New England when the Pilgrims first

arrived: 100,000

• Native Americans taught Pilgrims how toplant wheat, Indian corn, and peas. Soon,

settlement was growing lots of food. Later

that year, in the fall, Pilgrims celebrated the

harvest. They invited Native Americanfriends to join them. This has become known

as the first Thanksgiving.



Interesting Facts

•

In colonial America, troublemakers werepunished in the center of town for all to see.

• Estimated number of sermons the average

Puritan listened to in his or her lifetime:

7,000

• Average length of each sermon: two hours

or more.

•Average age at which women in colonialNew England first married: 22

• Average number of children born to each

woman: 7.



Interesting Facts about American

Revolution

• The first shot fired in the American is called the"shot heard round the world".

• George Washington, the first President, only

attended school until he was 14 years old. He

became Commander of the Virginia Militia whenhe was just 23.

• Although the war was between the colonies and

Great Britain, other countries got involved as

well. The French were a major ally to the coloniesand there were French, German, and Spanish

soldiers who fought in the war.

• The United States didn't exist until after the

Declaration of Independence was signed!



Conclusion

• American literature began with the orally

transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics(always songs) of Indian cultures. There was no

written literature among the more than 500

different Indian languages and tribal cultures that

existed in North America before the firstEuropeans arrived.

• American writing began with the work of English

adventurers and colonists in the New World.

• From the beginning, however, the literature of

New England was also directed to the edification

and instruction of the colonists themselves,

intended to direct them in the ways of the godly.

from earliest days to a new nation

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