This thesis examines the practice of the camp meeting as a significant factor in the growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church in nineteenth-century New England. Such a comprehensive investigation into camp meetings in New England has never been done before. Also, with the exception of one book and one other recent dissertation, the general history of Methodism in New England is a topic that was overlooked for nearly a century. This research helps to fill those gaps. Many scholars give credit to camp meetings for fostering conversion, though the focus has generally been on camps held in the American South and the western frontier. After briefly recounting the rise of Methodism and camp meetings in the United States, the thesis turns to a more specific focus on the rise of Methodism and camp meetings in New England prior to 1823. Zion's Herald newspaper provides a steady and previously untapped source of primary information about camp meetings in New England from its first appearance in 1823 to well into the twentieth century. After discussion of some key developments of New England Methodism relevant to camp meetings between 1823 and 1871, a thick description of one camp meeting in 1823 is presented to show how the many parts worked together. This is followed by an account of aspects of the camp meetings that might be classified broadly as ritual, how these changed over time, and the impact they had on the process of identity formation at the camps. The spotlight is then directed toward the liturgical aspects of camp meetings as practiced in New England. These include components of worship practices common to Methodist congregations of the period as they gathered for prayer meetings, Sunday worship and quarterly conferences, such as preaching, praying, singing, and love feasts, and also those acts of worship developed specifically for camp meetings such as dedicating the grounds, and the closing ritual procession and "parting hand." As with the ritual practices, attention is again given both to how these worship practices influenced worshippers, and how they changed over time. Finally the interpretive framework of "poetic discourse" offered by Stephen Cooley is used to analyze the most potent ritual elements involved in the process of conversion and church growth in conversation with contemporary scholars in the fields of sociology and ritual studies. In the end this study shows not only the factors that fostered conversions and church growth, but also how the camp meetings gradually lost their potency as they changed over time. / 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1979. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Margaret E. Dewar. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M.M.E.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Thesis. 1979. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 188-190. / M.C.P.

At a time when the higher education as a whole is experiencing an incredible leadership turnover and a narrowing pipeline of prepared or willing leaders to step into these important roles, the industry is also experiencing more scrutiny than ever before, creating a challenging time for the leaders of these institutions. Small private colleges in New England, in particular, have their own unique set of complications, which makes finding the right kind of future leaders particularly important. This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of 14 small private college presidents amidst an incredibly unique set of factors which substantially complicate the roles for leaders of small, private institutions in New England with modest endowments. The study found two primary roles that the presidents must fulfill: a Leadership Paradox of communication strategies and a Leader/Follower responsibility to its Board. Finally, the emotional consequence of fulfilling these two roles is explained in the Treading Water in a Changing Tide theme. This study fills a gap in the literature related to this specific niche of the industry, at a time when leadership succession and the future of small private colleges is an important conversation for the future of higher education.

This thesis reports on a study undertaken at the Dixson Library, University of New England. The purpose of the study was to develop an understanding of users of online public access catalogues (OPACs). The understanding gained from the study will assist in the development of improvements to the Library's OPAC, and increase user ability to access information from the OPAC. The study replicated the user questionnaire of the Online Patron Access Project, sponsored by the Council on Library Resources (CLR) in 1981/83. The questionnaire was modified slightly to suit conditions at the Dixson Library. The study addressed nine research questions relating to the users, their reactions, attitudes, experiences and problems. The user task and their suggestions for improvement were also addressed. The study formally tested three propositions between the variables user task, success and attitudes in relation to OPAC users. The findings show the analysis of the responses for the population as a whole, and, where relevant, for eight groups of student respondents based on their academic affiliation. The student population was of particular importance because of the preponderance of external students at the University of New England. The differences in the findings between the groups of students were discussed, and where possible, explained. The three formal propositions were tested by carrying out Chi square tests for the values of each variable. Nine significant relationships were found. Comparisons were made between the Dixson Library findings and those of the CLR study. Recommendations and conclusions were drawn from the study, including areas for further research.

This dissertation recovers the political histories of New England's historic graveyards. From their early rejection of English burial practices to their modern incarnation as tourist attractions, New England's historic graveyards have been public forums for political posturing and debate. Far from the tranquil sanctuaries of later imagination, burying grounds of the colonial era were places where both the powerful and the relatively powerless could make shows of their strengths and air their grievances.

Since the publication of Mary Rowlandson's, The Soveraignty and Goodness of God . . ., released six years after the close of King Philip's War and the death of the Pokanoket leader, Metacomet, in 1682, the Indian captivity narrative has operated as a widely influential component of American literary, historical, and cultural discourse. From the seventeenth century to the present, the metaphors, symbols, and the implicit ideologies of this literary genre have had a powerful and enduring influence on the public's perception of American Indian people, and the development of an expansionist American ideology. As a result, the operant binary of the bloodthirsty "savage" and the "civilized" Euro-American has become a common feature of discourses in which American Indian people have been, and continue to be, represented in American historiography, literature, art, film, and popular culture, while also serving as a primary textual justification for the territorial expansion of the United States, and as an implicit justification and historical alibi for the concomitant destruction of American Indian societies and cultures.In this work, my aim is to deconstruct and demystify the regime of literary and historical privilege that has become an explicit function of Rowlandson's text and subsequent narratives by presenting a critical perspective that is responsive to the complex array of social, cultural, and historical forces that were converging in the Massachusetts colony during the late seventeenth century. In so doing, I have attempted to present the "Indian side" of the story and examine the events that Rowlandson describes in her narrative from the perspective of Indian people who have been all too often silenced in American historical and literary discourses. I have addressed and attempted to answer some of the nagging questions surrounding the original publication and dissemination of Rowlandson's work in order to shed some much needed light on the complex cultural and social processes at work in Puritan society during the seventeenth century, while illustrating how texts such as Rowlandson's continues to shape our perceptions of others and our own conceptions of historical reality.

This research assesses how political legislation served as the catalyst in the transformation of Massachusetts through four specific economic stages from 1763 to 1825: fishing, privateering, global maritime commerce, and textile manufacturing. The objective of this analysis is to examine how politics forced coastal merchants to invest their commercial wealth into the burgeoning interior textile industry of the New England hinterland. Vance's mercantile model best explains European settlement of New England since multiple communities developed along the Atlantic coastline of the Massachusetts Bay region. Boston, Salem, and Newburyport emerged as entrepots, which acted as intermediaries between Europe and the frontier. The methodology analyzes academic texts by historical geographers and on-site research through shiplogs in the archives at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Merchant acumen, venture capital, and British technology transformed Massachusetts from the golden age of shipping to the birth of the industrial revolution in North America.