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Historical Background

Society and Culture

The colonists brought with them to the New World the rigid caste attitudes of Europe, and colonial society divided itself into distinct stratifications. The aristocrats—wealthy planters and merchants, clergymen, and top public officials—tended to erect social barriers that insulated them from the artisans, farmers, and tradesmen of the middle class, and from the laborers of the lower class. Still, the manifold economic opportunities of America prevented the barriers from rising as high as in Europe. These obstacles were often scaled by the talented and ambitious, and became less intimidating as the intellectual climate grew less congenial to the alien system.

Even for the great majority who had to be content with their assigned class, life was far less onerous than in the Old World. Because of plentiful land and scarce labor, the dissatisfied worker had only to move on, to find other opportunities. All that he needed was willingness to work. As a result, the lower classes enjoyed a personal freedom rarely found in Europe.

The 18th-century colonists found progressively more time for leisure pursuits, although they were usually preoccupied mainly with making a living—except, perhaps, some of the aristocracy. The sternness of religious belief that characterized the 17th century broke down to a significant degree following the "Great Awakening" in the 1740's. Colonial minds, freed of overpowering religious concern, turned increasingly to politics, art, and literature. Although cultural manifestations were almost exclusively European imports, the very awakening of interest in such matters revealed a broadening intellectual horizon.

Massachusetts Hall, built in 1718-20, is the oldest surviving building of Harvard University, the first institution for higher learning in the Colonies. (National Park Service)

The spread of both local and intercolonial road networks, supplementing water transportation, promoted travel and thereby the exchange of ideas. Improved transportation also made possible an improved postal system, and in 1710 Parliament passed an act to establish a "General Post Office for all Her Majesty's Dominions," replacing the functions and broadening the scope of the individual colonial post offices of the 17th century. This system in turn made possible the dissemination of printed materials. Beginning with John Campbell's Boston News Letter, which in 1704 launched colonial journalism, newspapers proliferated in the towns and cities of America.

The new intellectual preoccupation produced better educational opportunities, which reacted to deepen still more the intellectual interests. In many parts of New England, and to some extent in the middle Colonies also, an elementary education could be had at public expense. In the plantation colonies of the South, however, private tutors continued to furnish almost all early schooling. The colonies' two collegiate institutions of 1700, Harvard and William and Mary, had by 1775 increased to nine with the addition of Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth. (See pp. 103-104, 175-176.)

The cultural growth of the 18th century played its part in binding together the Colonies and instilling in the colonists a sense of common interest and purpose that, combined with strengthening economic and political bonds, had propelled the American Colonies to the brink of nationhood by 1775.

This distinguished architectural specimen, the Wren Building at Williamsburg, Va., was built between 1695 and 1702, after a design by Sir Christopher Wren. It was the original academic building of the College of William and Mary. (National Park Service)