Please discuss the lives and times of Elizabeth Ashbridge, Boyrereau Brinch, and Judith Sargent Murray. What were their hopes and dreams for themselves and America? What obstacles did they encounter and how successful were they in achieving what they sought? What do their lives tell you about America from the 1730s to the 1810s? In your paper make sure that you rely heavily on the required course readings: Ashbridge’s memoir, Brace narrative, and Murray’s essay.
Organizational and technical aspects of the paper:
Your paper should be four pages long. It needs an introduction, in which you explain what the paper is about and briefly what your views are, and it needs a conclusion, in which you provide a thoughtful concluding statement on one of the two options.
There are also technical aspects of the paper to which you need to attend. It should be double spaced, 12 point font, Times New Roman, with one inch margins on all four sides. No bibliography is necessary. Do not use a title page, but do provide a title and provide it along with your name at the top of page one. Number your pages.
You must cite your sources in footnotes. In this assignment they will be Cronon’s article, the Puritan documents, the documents in “Regulating Sexuality in the Anglo-American Colonies.” At the end of each paragraph cite all of the sources you used in that paragraph. Use direct quotations sparingly and place them in quotation marks followed by a footnote. Do not commit plagiarism, which means stating or implying that the ideas of another are your own.
Use the following format in your footnotes: A complete citation the first time you reference a work – like this1; author’s last name and short title (or short title only, if there is no author) with the 2nd reference – like this2; and author’s last name only (or short title, if no author) for 3rd and subsequent references – like this.3
1 Elizabeth Ashbridge, “Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge,” in William L. Andrews (ed.), Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 147-177, here 150-152; Boyrereau Brinch, The Blind African Slave; Or, Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace, edited by Kari J. Winter (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 95-96; Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes, 1790,” in Sheila L. Skemp (ed.), Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents (Boston: Bedford Books, 1998), 176-182, here 180.
2 Ashbridge, “Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life,” 172-175; Brinch, The Blind African Slave, 132-135; Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” 179.
3 Ashbridge, 166-169; Brinch, 145-150; Murray, 182.
