Probate Records as a Source for Early American History
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3247281 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gloria L Main (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1975 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 89 |
| Publication date | 1975-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1922595 |
| OpenAlex | W2318223000 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
HE varieties of human experience are not infinite, and the understanding of man proceeds through the study of the one, the few, and the many. Historians traditionally have concentrated on the first by focusing on the thoughts and actions of prominent individuals moving within a specific social and cultural milieu about which the researcher possesses a more or less clear picture. That picture, alas, is often the result of a series of camera's-eye views as perceived by the very actors themselves, and these views, superimposed one on the other, furnish the setting as well as the plot for the historian's narrative. No. wonder, then, that the earnest scholar searches for sources independent of his principals,, free of their influence yet pertinent to their fate. One such source exists in glorious profusion for students of early American history: the records of county probate courts. Many of these are available on microfilm, a few are published, and vast quantities rest in readily accessible archives.' The present writer's work in the records of Maryland and Massachusetts suggests that appropriate use of these materials can provide quantitative outlines of colonial economic development, furnish profiles of the evolving social structure, and sketch the contours of cultural change in the enclaves of European settlement in the New World
Archaeology · Art · Artifact (error · Colonialism · Cultural artifact · Genealogy · Literature · Microform · Narrative · Political science · Probate · Settlement (finance · Sketch · Wonder · Work (physics · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Computer Science · History · Law · Psychology
Wealth Distribution in Nova Scotia during the Confederation Era, 1851 and 1871
Consumerism and the Emergence of the Middle Class in Colonial America
Coins and Commerce
Land and inequality in Canada 1870–1930
Materialities of Memory
The archaeology of probate inventories
Estimating the Wealth of Americans on the Eve of the Revolution
Inequality of Wealth in the Ottoman Empire
Managing “Property”
The Probate Regime
House and barn; the wealth of farmers, 1795–1815
Living Side by Side
The bare necessities
Consumer behavior in colonial charlestown, Massachusetts, 1630–1760
Articles too Tedious to Enumerate
Maps in the Marketplace
Slave Ownership in Early Georgia
Does Egalitarianism Come at a Price? Inequality and Economic Performance in Late-Nineteenth-Century Ontario
The Narrowing of the Gender Wealth Gap across the Nineteenth-Century United States
Ethnic Distinctions and Wealth among Colonial Jamaican Merchants, 1685–1716
The Rise of Representation
Counting Clocks, Owning Time
Localism and the Limits of Political Brokerage
| Citations per year | 0.49 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1979 - 2022 (44) |
| Highly cited | No |