Middle Colonies
Middle colonies in Pennsylvania and Delaware were established in part due to William Penn. The Middle colonies society was cosmopolitan and more lenient than New England.
William Penn helped Pennsylvania developed. In 1685, the population reached 9,000. The center of the Middle colonies is Philadelphia. Towards the end of the colonial period there were around 30,000 residents of the place. Philadelphia was known for enterprising businessmen making them one of the most progressive cities of colonial America.
The Quakers numbered the most in Philadelphia. The Germans were considered the most experienced farmers. Cottage industries such as weaving, shoemaking, cabinetmaking and others abound in the place.
Scot-Irish also moved to Pennsylvania in the early 18th century. They settled at the back country and worked as hunters or farmers. The population comprising Pennsylvania may be diverse but it was not as diverse as that of New York. New York was made up of Dutch, Italians, Portuguese, French, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, English, Scots, Irish, Germans, Poles and Bohemians.
The Dutch were the most prominent member of the society in New York during that time. They exercised a lot of social and economic influence in the community.
Society and Culture
It was hard to create a powerful or aristocratic class in the colonies at that time because anyone could easily leave and establish another colony elsewhere. This served as a reason why creation of higher classes was discouraged. The rich and the powerful relied on the masses to take care of their businesses. Without them, the business would not flourish.
To prevent the departure of the masses, those in position were forced to adopt liberal policy measures, provide land-grant requirements and allow religious practices among the workers.
During the colonial period, the foundations of American education and culture were created. The famed and highly-recognized Harvard College was established in 1636 in Massachusetts. The College of William and Mary was also founded in Virginia. Then, Collegiate School of Connecticut or what we know now as Yale College came to be. School system overlooked by government authority was also developed. The Puritans imbibed the reading and study of Scriptures to promote literacy.
Massachusetts Bay Colony was noted to have established in 1647 the "ye olde deluder Satan" Act which required towns with more than 50 families to create a grammar school which was a Latin school used to prepare students for college. All the New England colonies followed Massachusetts educational policy except for Rhode Island.
The first libraries were instituted by the immigrants from New England. The first immigrants had little libraries filled with books from London. In the 1680s, Boston booksellers sold various books of different genres such as classical literature, history, politics, philosophy, science, theology and belles-lettres. The English colonies created the first printing press in Harvard College in 1939.
In Pennsylvania, the first school was established in 1683. The lessons taught in the school at that time were reading, writing and account keeping. Another school called Friends Public School offered advanced lessons in classical languages, history and literature. This school is now known as William Penn Charter School. The lessons were free to those who cannot afford to pay. Parents who could afford were required to pay tuition fees.
A number of private schools also sprung up in Philadelphia. These private schools did not have religious affiliations. They trained students in languages, mathematics and natural science. For adults, night schools were available for them. Women had the opportunity to study too but the lessons taught to them were limited to those they could use at home. There were private teachers however that could teach women especially from those of the rich Philadelphia families lessons in dancing, music, French, singing, painting, grammar and bookkeeping.
Two leading men in Philadelphia had profound influence on the quality of education of the place. These men were James Logan and Benjamin Franklin. Logan held the position of secretary of the colony. Young Franklin used his library for his scientific discoveries. Logan housed his book collection in a building he donated to the city in 1745.
Franklin was the foremost contributor to Philadelphia's intellectual society. He created a debating club which became the basis of the American Philosophical Society. His works led to the creation of a public academy now known as University of Pennsylvania. He also established the subscription library which he referred as "the mother of all North American subscription libraries."
The wealthy people from the Southern colonies hired private tutors all the way from Ireland or Scotland to teach their children lessons. Some sent their children to England. Due to these reasons, those in the upper classes did not promote public education. Also, farms and plantations were widely dispersed, making it difficult to establish a community school. A few free schools however were built in Virginia in 1647, Syms School and in 1659, Eaton School.
In 1704, the colonies in Cambridge, Massachusetts launched the first newspaper. In 1745, 22 other newspapers were sold in the entire colonies.
Freedom of the press was established in New York in the case of Johann Peter Zenger who created the New York Weekly Journal in 1733. Zenger opposed the government. Into the two years of the newspapers existence, the governor could not stand Zenger's barbs. He had him put to prison on the charge of seditious libel. Zenger edited his paper in jail for nine months which caused great furor throughout the colonies. Andrew Hamilton, Zenger's lawyer pointed out in his defense that Zenger's barbs were true therefore not libelous. The jury gave a verdict to not guilty and Zenger was set free.
In the 1730s, a reformation movement called the Great Awakening was sweeping the entire colonies. This movement is a religious revival which began in Philadelphia and then spread to New England. George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards spearheaded this spiritual movement.
Whitefield preached to an estimated 20,000 people using emotional oratory and gestures. It captured the audience's attention and the religious revival spread like wildfire throughout New England and the middle colonies. Edwards, one of those influenced by Whitefield, gave the most memorable speech during the Great Awakening "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". His speech stressed the importance of emotional content of Christianity.
The Great Awakening became the foundation for evangelical denominations and revivalism which are still considered important in American religious and cultural life to this day. It encouraged believers to depend on their conscience and led to the creation of different religious sects and denominations which in turn formed the basis of the principle of religious toleration.
