In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt addressed the American Historical Association to call for American history to be written as compelling stories of literary quality. Editor Allen Johnson of Yale University responded by publishing the Chronicles of America series: 50 succinct volumes on regional and thematic American history. These books, intended for secondary schools and college students, are expository works of American history composed by competent historians in the 1920's, well before the special pleading and upending of social norms typical of histories after 1970. This series is focused on the mainstream of American political life and leadership from its initial volumes on Native Americans and European colonists to its final volumes on Woodrow Wilson, Canada, and the Hispanic Republics to our South.
The Fathers of New England is volume #6 of the Chronicles series and concerns the Anglo settlers of New England. The radical religious sectarians who settled Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were particularly devoted to setting up a society in contrast to what they saw as the corruptions of the Old World by Roman Catholic culture, and John Winthrop memorably dedicated New England as a "shining city on a hill" that would serve as a model of a reformed society. The Puritans, Pilgrims, and other sectarians who came to the region found occasion to renew religious conflicts and schisms in America, and the result was the creation of other small colonies such as Rhode Island and Connecticut. The intellectual tradition of these remarkable people still defines the region, which became the home of the oldest institutions of higher learning in America and the early establishment of childhood education devoted to literacy. Charles Andrews, the author of the volume, was a Pulitzer Prize winning historian of New England in the colonial period, and also the author of Colonial Folkways: volume #9 in the Chronicles series. In addition, the work includes a contemporary bibliography of suggested readings.
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