++Balleh, Joan, Fairfield, Connecticut, 1661-1691: A Demographic Study of the Economic, Political, and Social Life of a New England Community,” unpubl. thesis, U. of Bridgeport, 1970. This is a well-documented glimpse into the Puritan-to Yankee stage of a town whose conservatism tends to be more secular than religious.
**
The Blue Laws of Connecticut
, ed. Samuel M. Smucker, Philadelphia, 1861. This is a useful compendium of seventeenth-century Connecticut documents, including the entire Code of 1650.+Bridenbaugh, Carl,
Vexed and Troubled Englishmen, 1590-1642
, New York, 1976. This makes engrossing reading and presents useful material to show the English religious, economic, social, and legal context of Puritans and Virginians.
+Calder, Isabel MacBeath,
New Haven Colony
, New Haven, 1934, 1970. An excellently complete, readable coverage of New Haven’s history as a colony, this book demonstrates how troubled its short existence was.
**Cohen, Sheldon,
Connecticut’s Loyalist Gadfly: The Reverend Samuel
Andrew Peters
, American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1976. With an easy and flowing narrative, it is helpful in showing how Peters came to take the position he did and why Anglicans were looked upon with suspicion at that time.
++Collier, Christopher, “Steady Habits Considered and Reconsidered,”
Connecticut Review
, vol 5:2 (Apr. 1972), pp. 28-37. Within just a few pages, this article manages to summarize handily the range of historians’ opinions regarding the extent of consensus in Connecticut, especially during the period that this unit deals with. It is a good starting point from which one may take off in any of the directions he suggests.
**Coons, Paul Wakeman,
The Achievement of Religious Liberty in
Connecticut
, Tercentenary Commission of the State of Connecticut, Publication No. 60, New Haven, 1936. A tremendously helpful summary of the religious section of my unit’s concern, this pamphlet is a help in seeing the larger picture.
+Greene, Maria Louise,
The Development of Religious Liberty in
Connecticut
, Boston 1905. A lucid narration of the gradual opening of Connecticut to religious pluralism; this book is especially good for examples of anti-Establishment opinion and for the English background.
++Holdsworth, William K., “Law and Society in Colonial Connecticut, 1636-1672,” unpubl. diss. Claremont Grad. Sch., 1974 Indispensable for the Puritan period, bit it is slow going. With meticulous scholarship it takes in both Connecticut and New Haven and should be read
after
Jones.
*Hoyt, Joseph B.,
The Connecticut Story
, New Haven, 1961. Well-illustrated, with an emphasis on geography and economics, it is a fine book, but not helpful for political or religious history.
+Jones, Mary Jeanne Anderson,
Congregational Commonwealth: Connecticut
, 1636-1662, Middletown, Ct., 1968. A “must” for anyone interested in the Commonwealth period, this well-documented study reads easily, and its pages seem filled with living people.
*Johnston, Johanna,
The Connecticut Colony
, London, 1969. An attractively got-up book, with greatest emphasis placed on what might be considered “interesting” or “exciting;” this book will please junior-highs but give them little of substance regarding the dynamics of social change.
+Larned, Ellen D.
History of Windham County
2 vols., Worcester, 1874-1880. This book could provide the material for an excellent case study or two concerning l8th-century religious dynamics: I chose, for example,to follow the Town of Canterbury straight through the book, and it is quite a story.
** & *Lee, W. Storrs,
The Yankees of Connecticut
, New York, 1957. An unusual book, it seeks to tackle various themes and deal with them without much regard for chronology, but it is enjoyable and puts life on history’s bones.
*McLoughlin, William G.,
New England Dissent, 1630-1833
2 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1971. This book promises to be the best book I didn’t read; its pages are full of descriptions of struggling dissenters and dissenting groups, with large sections on Connecticut.
**Morgan, Edmund,
The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop
, Boston, 1958. This book must be read for an understanding of Puritanism from the inside; it narrows the distance between us and them. The “revisionist” account of the Hutchinson and Williams cases makes good reading.
+
———.
The Puritan Family
, Harper Torch Books, New York, 1966, rev. A loving portrayal of its subject, the book is filled with many examples. It is not light reading: it is scholarly and comprehensive.
++Parrington, Vernon Louis,
The Colonial Mind, 1600-1800
, Harvest Books, New York, 1956. A probing analysis of personalities who played important roles in both sections of my unit; it seems provocative and will add depth to my understanding, but it is not an easy book.
**Powell, Sumner Chilton,
Puritan Village
, Anchor Books, Garden City, 1965. An almost-incredible study of Sudbury, Massachusetts, this book suggests that tensions existed in seventeenth-century New England towns between the restive young who wanted to get ahead and older leaders who liked things are they were. The struggle cuts across Puritan society and begins almost with the founding of the town. The Dedham study points to exactly the same problem, if you can find the title.
+Purcell, Richard J.,
Connecticut in Transition, 1775-1818
, Middletown, Ct., 1918, 1963. An unusual book, it combines scholarship with a sense of the dramatic so that the reader becomes engrossed in the contest finally won by those who wanted a constitution for the State.
***Roth, David & Freeman Meyer,
From Revolution to Constitution:
Connecticut, 1763-1818
, Center for Connecticut Studies, Chester, Ct., 1975. Chapter III of this book is a very readable review of the high spots of the events leading to the 1818 Constitution.
**Simpson, Alan,
Puritanism in Old and New England
, Chicago, 1955. A comprehensive and sympathetic look at Puritanism, this book appears to me to be of great potential help for anyone desiring more understanding of the movement.
*Soderlind, Arthur E.,
Colonial Connecticut
, New York, 1976. This book is equally as attractive as Johnston, but it is much more meaty and delves into political and religious questions, managing to describe the Charter Oak incident in only one page:.
Taylor, Robert J.,
Colonial Connecticut: A History
, Millwood, 1979. The only book on this list I have not seen, it comes very highly recommended.
**Van Dusen, Albert Edward,
Connecticut
, New York, 1961. An attractively-illustrated book, it does well on Hooker and the 1650 code; it is weak on the issues in the second section of my unit.
**Zeichner, Oscar,
Connecticut’s Years of Controversy, 1750-1776
. Excellent back background for the second section of this unit, the first two chapters are especially good and present some statistics in regard to the amount of participation in decision-making in the middle of the eighteenth century.