11. One of the many waterways in central-eastern Algonquian homelands used by Native people for millennia before European contacts, the Charles River, seen here at Natick, east of Quinsigamond, ran through the heart of the so-called “praying town” in the mid-seventeenth century. Indigenous inhabitants from Nipmuc, Massachusett, Wampanoag, and other communities engaged with places like this as they navigated new pressures of Euro-American settler colonialism and Protestant mission-building. As New England antiquarians searched for “artifacts” at these sites over subsequent centuries and had them deposited in museums, many tribal heritage objects became disinterred and detached from traditional contexts. Photograph courtesy of the author.
Welcome to Commonplace, a destination for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. A bit less formal than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Commonplace speaks—and listens—to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900. It is for all sorts of people to read about all sorts of things relating to early American life—from architecture to literature, from politics to parlor manners. It’s a place to find insightful analysis of early American history as it is discussed in scholarly literature, as it manifests on the evening news, as it is curated in museums, big and small; as it is performed in documentary and dramatic films and as it shows up in everyday life.
In addition to critical evaluations of books and websites (Reviews) and poetic research and fiction (Creative Writing), our articles explore material and visual culture (Objects); pedagogy, the writing of literary scholarship, and the historian’s craft (Teach); and diverse aspects of America’s past and its many peoples (Learn). For more great content, check out our other projects, (Just Teach One) and (Just Teach One African American Print).
How to cite Commonplace articles:
Author, “Title of Article,” Commonplace: the journal of early American life, date accessed, URL.
Sophie White, “Trading Looks Race, Religion and Dress in French America,” Commonplace: the journal of early American life, accessed September 30, 2019, https://commonplace.online/article/trading-looks-race-religion-dress-french-america/
Joshua R. Greenberg, editor
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