![]() | American Passage: The Communications Frontier in Early New England Subjects: New England -- History -- Colonial period ca. 1600-1775; New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775; New England -- Social conditions -- 17th century; Communication -- Social aspects -- New England -- History -- 17th century; Social networks -- Ne; New England was built on letters. Its colonists left behind thousands of them, brittle and browning and crammed with curls of purplish script. How they were delivered, though, remains mysterious. We know surprisingly little about the way news and people traveled in early America. No postal service or newspapers existed--not until 1704 would readers be able to glean news from a "public print." But there was, in early New England, an unseen world of travelers, rumors, movement, and letters. Unearthing that early American communications frontier, American Passage retells the story of English colonization as less orderly and more precarious than the quiet villages of popular imagination. Grandjean Katherine : Katherine Grandjean is Assistant Professor of History at Wellesley College. |
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