Anne Bradstreet

Well, I have to agree with the other girls in the class in saying that Anne Bradstreet was a great read. I loved exploring her life and learning not only about her experience (as a young woman, a colonist, an Elizabethan, a poet, the first American poet, etc.) but also a bit about Puritanism ideology and beliefs. I studied American History my junior year of high school, but we barely touched upon Puritanism, so I thought the book made a great examination of it.

However, you have to take a look at this article I found. It discusses a recent study that found that New England has surpassed the West Coast as the least religious region in America. It even mentions such "obvious suspects" as the "pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church." It's a super interesting article, especially given everything we just read about the God-fearing religious fervor of the Puritans and the fact that they came to America to pursue their Utopia.

I was discussing this with some of the other girls, and we were thinking a lot about why exactly the Puritans came to the New World in the first place. Rather than promoting the idea of religious freedom, I feel like they came here to form that utopian society where they (as the dissenters) could flourish in their own Puritan mindset. There was no religious freedom here, as evidenced by the fear they had of other religious ideas, but rather they wanted to be exclusive in who they would accept into their community. I guess the end of the article put it best when it said that "religions are like denominations... They tend to shift." Have a look at it and tell me what you think!