Submissions
Commonplace Call for Submissions
Article reviews are ongoing.
Joshua R Greenberg
Article reviews are ongoing.
Submissions
J. L. Bell
Who was that traveler? And what did she signify to the poet?
Rebecca Jo Plant and Frances M. Clarke
Historians have not only underestimated the sheer number of underage soldiers who fought for the Union, they have also overlooked the significance of the legal, political, and administrative battles these youths provoked.
Timothy Messer-Kruse
Jefferson’s system depended on shoring up the bulwarks of race and basing the law on a theory of government that withdrew the protection of government from unfavored groups.
Dror Goldberg
By leading the risky but eventually successful financial operation, Elisha justified his name.
Rebecca M. Dresser
Daniel’s preordained path as Republican steward began well enough, but it soon took a tragic detour.
Benjamin Ray
The Proctor of the play was inspired by Miller’s projection of himself into events of 1692 and it is worth digging a bit deeper into the family matters between John and Elizabeth.
Joshua R. Greenberg
So, what is the right decision for Commonplace when it comes to choosing a social media strategy?
Buck Woodard and Danielle Moretti-Langholtz
The dispossession of Native lands for the purposes of organizing English tobacco plantations was a deepening and broadening of merchant capitalism in Virginia.
Neil R. Stout
The senators, like the grand jurors, knew their man, and probably conceded that Temple had given him the hiding he had been asking for.
James D. Lilley
Poe’s work reminds us that the separation of “Arts” and “Sciences” into discrete discourses of knowledge is itself a quite recent invention.
Christen Mucher
The outlines of “salvation antiquarianism”—with the emphasis on “saving” both in terms of preservation and Christian redemption—appears particularly clearly in the AAS’s inaugural 1813 address.
Jennifer Manoukian
Especially in the early years, with no grammar books or dictionaries of spoken languages, missionaries relied heavily on their cultural know-how and linguistic expertise and came to learn about the nuances of Armenian culture through them.
Sara Lampert
Pet of the Petticoats extends the reach of Anglo-Atlantic anti-Catholicism to the stage, illustrating the ways its tropes and anxieties moved across genres and into sentimental stage comedy.
Amanda Bowie Moniz
Not only was women’s and African Americans’ public leadership new and controversial, but also, well into the 1800s, Black and white women didn’t typically cooperate in charitable activity or reform efforts.
Zachary Dorner
Depending on one’s relationship to the monetary regime, coining could either appear a heinous offense that threatened the ruling order by undermining public trust in its currency, or a creative solution to the shortage of specie across much of the Atlantic world.
J. L. Bell
Rebecca Jo Plant and Frances M. Clarke
Timothy Messer-Kruse
Dror Goldberg
Rebecca M. Dresser
Benjamin Ray
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, http://commonplace.online/article/trading-looks-race-religion-dress-french-america/
Joshua R. Greenberg, editor
If you are looking for a specific Commonplace article from the back catalog and do not see it, or if have any other questions, please contact us directly. Please follow us on Twitter @Commonplacejrnl or Facebook @commonplacejournal and thank you for your support.