Tag: Society of Friends

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Christmas Day: A Soldier’s Holiday?

Soldiers’ celebrations depended on circumstances, personal beliefs, and family or community traditions. David DeSimone notes in his article “Another Look at Christmas in the Eighteenth Century”: [From the seventeenth century the] celebration of Christmas was outlawed in most of New England. Calvinist Puritans and Protestants abhorred the entire celebration and likened it to pagan rituals […]

by John Rees
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The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 1 of 3, The New England Colonies

The American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the slave trade and then slavery itself had to start somewhere, and a strong argument can be made that it started with the thirteen American colonies gaining independence from Great Britain, then […]

by Christian McBurney
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Revisiting the Prayer at Valley Forge

When George Washington died in 1799, partisan infighting and international crises threatened the survival of the American experiment. Many Americans believed in Washington’s unique ability to unite the country, and his death exacerbated national uncertainties. Enter Mason Locke Weems, whose contributions to Washington mythmaking dwarf those of any individual then or since. As national yearning […]

by Blake McGready