United States History - Notes

This site is to archive notes I've taken in U.S. History AP, so that I can access them from school if I forget them on a disk of some sort.

The top part of the population was wealthy and owned most of the land. The next level was the business owners, craftsmen, farmers, etc. Below them were the indentured servants, and below them, the slaves and former prisoners sent to us from Britain (also sent to Australia). In American society, was there what you’d call social mobility. Could you move up and down the ladder. Yes, how. Through marriage, making more money, ambition, all of these were ways that people became more socially mobile. This was unusual. Could that be done in England? No. It didn’t matter, if you lived in England at the time. You could be wealthy, you could have more money than anybody else, but you still wouldn’t be considered as good as the nobility. Unless you could buy your way in through marriage. Much of the nobility were running out of money, so the daughters of nobles would marry the son of a merchant for a very large dowry. When the daughter was married, she was accepted as a noble, but her family was not. She would still be different and looked down upon. I.e., social mobility in England was virtually nonexistent. In America, if you were successful and skilled, you could become a member of the government, you could be one of the leaders of the colony. You could come here as a convict and move your way up the societal ladder. People liked the idea of being able to do for themselves, to improve their lives. This attacted them to come to America. In the colonies, what group of workers or what professions, that’s the better way of putting it, what profession was the most honored. The Ministry, the Clery. Why? Okay, for many people, that was why they came here, was for the religious freedom. They looked up to their ministers and clergymen. These were the people who were supposed to set the example in the city, had the education, and people revered them. Harvard was established originally to train ministers, and it was a truly honored profession. Lawyers were the lowest, nobody liked them, can’t be trusted. Doctors were also considered pretty low. Totally different, today we look up to the doctors, have all this education. It’s a long process, and we do tend to look up to them and admire them. At the time, however, they were very poorly trained, and leaned how to be a doctor through an apprenticeship. The doctors didn’t know what caused epidemics, but they didn’t have the knowledge, and the people had hard feelings against these doctors, whom they viewed as incompetent.
The top part of the population was wealthy and owned most of the land. The next level was the business owners, craftsmen, farmers, etc. Below them were the indentured servants, and below them, the slaves and former prisoners sent to us from Britain (also sent to Australia). In American society, was there what you’d call social mobility. Could you move up and down the ladder. Yes, how. Through marriage, making more money, ambition, all of these were ways that people became more socially mobile. This was unusual. Could that be done in England? No. It didn’t matter, if you lived in England at the time. You could be wealthy, you could have more money than anybody else, but you still wouldn’t be considered as good as the nobility. Unless you could buy your way in through marriage. Much of the nobility were running out of money, so the daughters of nobles would marry the son of a merchant for a very large dowry. When the daughter was married, she was accepted as a noble, but her family was not. She would still be different and looked down upon. I.e., social mobility in England was virtually nonexistent. In America, if you were successful and skilled, you could become a member of the government, you could be one of the leaders of the colony. You could come here as a convict and move your way up the societal ladder. People liked the idea of being able to do for themselves, to improve their lives. This attacted them to come to America. In the colonies, what group of workers or what professions, that’s the better way of putting it, what profession was the most honored. The Ministry, the Clery. Why? Okay, for many people, that was why they came here, was for the religious freedom. They looked up to their ministers and clergymen. These were the people who were supposed to set the example in the city, had the education, and people revered them. Harvard was established originally to train ministers, and it was a truly honored profession. Lawyers were the lowest, nobody liked them, can’t be trusted. Doctors were also considered pretty low. Totally different, today we look up to the doctors, have all this education. It’s a long process, and we do tend to look up to them and admire them. At the time, however, they were very poorly trained, and leaned how to be a doctor through an apprenticeship. The doctors didn’t know what caused epidemics, but they didn’t have the knowledge, and the people had hard feelings against these doctors, whom they viewed as incompetent.