The Minutemen and Their World

Metadata

Author: Robert A. Gross and Alan M. Taylor
Full Title: The Minutemen and Their World
Category: #books

Highlights

Yet in the background of the townsmen’s actions lay a deepening social and economic malaise. From mid-century onward, Concord was in the throes of a long, protracted decay to which the Barretts, the Browns, and the Hosmers adapted as best they could but which no one seemed able to stop. Signs of decline were everywhere: in the falling property values, in the worn-out land, in the goods that piled up in the shops after the French and Indian War, in the numerous vagabonds who tramped through town, and, most of all, in the steady exodus of the young.
But generational politics do not finally account for Concord’s response to revolution. If young men had to prod their elders into a radical stance, there was ultimately no gap between fathers and sons: they shared the same Whiggish values and goals. Just as fathers eventually acceded to their sons’ desires and set them up on the land, so they now responded to pressure and led the way to war. And the sons, having gotten their wishes, turned for guidance and wisdom to their elders. Revolution was a family affair.67
Yet in the background of the townsmen’s actions lay a deepening social and economic malaise. From midcentury onward, Concord was in the throes of a long, protracted decay to which the Barretts, the Browns, and the Hosmers adapted as best they could but which no one seemed able to stop. Signs of decline were everywhere: in the falling property values, in the worn-out land, in the goods that piled up in the shops after the French and Indian War, in the numerous vagabonds who tramped through town, and, most of all, in the steady exodus of the young.
Members of the older generation had no answers. They had their own anxieties. They were failing as parents: failing to pass on their property and status to the next generation, failing to direct their children to their proper roles in life. They were failing as neighbors: fighting bitterly over one issue after another even as they invoked the values of community and peace. They were failing as farmers and failing in trade. And as they watched their children leave home, one by one, perhaps never to see them again, they may have wondered about their own futures, too. What would happen to them when they were old and in need of help?
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But generational politics do not finally account for Concord’s response to revolution. If young men had to prod their elders into a radical stance, there was ultimately no gap between fathers and sons: they shared the same Whiggish values and goals. Just as fathers eventually acceded to their sons’ desires and set them up on the land, so they now responded to pressure and led the way to war. And the sons, having gotten their wishes, turned for guidance and wisdom to their elders. Revolution was a family affair.71
Not until the early decades of the nineteenth century did courtship and marriage change, as young people came to exercise greater control over their own destiny. Women now chose their own mates, subject to their parents’ veto, and not the other way around. They took their chances in the marriage market, where “fallen” women lost their value and where middle-class men, bent on establishing careers, were in no hurry to wed. Hence, chastity came back into fashion, and courtship lost its “sweets.”