Evolving Historiography Flashcards
(9 cards)
Early Historiography: Providentialism, Elightenment Rationalism, and Moral Judgement (17th-19th Century)
Contemporary Providential Accounts (Late 17th C.)
* Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (1693): Framed the trials as a cosmic battle between God and Satan. Mather emphasised Puritanism’s role in defending New England’s “City upon a Hill” from demonic invasion
* Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700): Offered one of the first secular, critical perspectives, condemning the spectral evidence and public hysteria, criticising Mather directly.
Enlightenment Critique (18th-19th C.) **
* Historians like *George Bancroft interpreted the trials as the death throes of medieval superstition. The Salem episode became a cautionary tale about the dangers of theocratic governance and unreason
* Framed Salem as an exception to the emerging rational order of the American Enlightenment
* Interpretive Focus: Divine Punishment- Religious Delusion- Rational Progress
* Key Works: *Mather and Calef; ***Bancroft’s ** History of the United States.
Psychological and Cultural Parallels (1940s- 1960s)
Psychoanalytic Approaches
* Marion Starkey, The Devil in Massachusetts (1949): Combined Freudian theory with narrative history. Portrayed Salem as the acting-out of subconscious tensions- particularly among adolescent girls constrained by Puritan repression.
Cold War Allegory and Collective Guilt
* Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953): Though fictionalised, it became historiographically significant in shaping public understanding. Salem became a symbol of ideological persecution, resonating with McCarthy-era witch hunts
* Scholars began to draw parallels with mass psychology, scapegoating, and collective fear in politically repressive contexts.
* Interpretive Focus: Psychological repression, mass hysteria, political metaphor
* Key Works: Starkey, Miller, Kenneth Stampp on collective moral panic.**
The Social Turn: Economic Structures and Local Conflict (1970s-1980s)
Social and Materialist Explanations
* Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed (1974): Groundbreaking social history that interpreted the witchcraft accusations as a product of intragroup conflict between traditional agrarian families in Salem Village and upwardly mobile merchants tied to Salem Town
* Focused on the spatial geography of accusations, supported with maps and tax rolls
**Methodological Innovation **
* Emphasis on quantitative analysis, community studies, and structural history influenced by Annales School historians (e.g., Braudel)
* Kai Erikson, Wayward Puritans (1966): Viewed witch trials as a boundary-setting mechanism for deviant behaviour in tight-knit societies.
* Interpretive Focus: Economic class tension, factionalism, community breakdown
* Key works: Salem Possessed, Erikson, David Hall’s studies of Puritanism.
Interlude: The Ergot Poisoning Hypothesis (1970s-1990s)
What is Ergotism?
* Ergot is a fungus (Claviceps purpurea) that grows on rye in cold, damp climates.
* When consumed, it can cause convulsions, hallucinations, skin sensations, and psychotic episodes — similar to effects of LSD.
* Historically known as St. Anthony’s Fire, it caused major outbreaks in medieval Europe.
Caporael’s Theory (1976)
* Linda Caporael proposed that convulsive ergotism from contaminated rye triggered the Salem girls’ symptoms in 1691–92.
* Cited climate conditions and geographic clustering of symptoms in Salem Village.
Scholarly Criticism
* Inconsistent symptoms: Accusers often acted rationally, not deliriously.
* Selective affliction: Only certain girls affected, not whole households.
* Missing symptoms: No signs of classic ergotism (e.g., gangrene, necrosis).
* Oversimplification: Ignores complex socio-religious, legal, and gendered dynamics.
* Historians (Norton, Boyer & Nissenbaum, Demos) argue it’s a reductionist explanation.
Legacy
* Still popular in media and classrooms, appealing for its neat scientific explanation of a chaotic event.
*Emphasizes biological/environmental determinism.
- Interpretive Focus: Biological/environmental determinism
- Key Work: Linda Caporael, “Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?” Science (1976)**
Cultural History and the Anthropology of Witchcraft (1980s-1990s)
- Microhistory and Cultural Psychology
- John Demos, Entertaining Satan (1982): Blended psychohistory with rich microhistory, focusing on the emotional lives, kin networks, and reputational concerns of individuals. He showed how shame, envy, and anxiety played out in Salem.
Cross-Cultural Analogy
* Drawing on anthropology (e.g., Evans-Pritchard, Mary Douglas), scholars recognised witchcraft as a transcultural phenomenon used to regulate behaviour, express social grievanced, and navigate liminal uncertainty.
* Interpretive Focus: Inner lives, cultural codes, comparative magic and taboo
* Key Works, Demos, Keith Thomas (European witchcraft), Natalie Zemos Davis (microhistory methods)
Gender and Feminist Interventions (Late 1980s-2000s)
Patriarchal Anxiety and Female Deviance
* Carol Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (1987): Argued that women- especially older, independent, widowed, and economically autonomous- were seen as threats to male control
* Highlighted how legal structures and community gossip worked to discipline female behaviour.
Intersectional Feminism
* Elizabeth Reis, Damned Women (1997): Focused on Puritan theology and gendered notions of sin, sexuality, and spiritual weakness. Showed how women internalised damnation, blurring the line between religious experience and psychological submission.
* Interpretive Focus: Misogyny, women’s resistance, gendered language of evil
* Key Works: Karlsen, Reis, Deborah Willis, Lindal Roper (European witchcraft and gender).
Race, Empire, and Postcolonial Contexts (2000s- Present)
Colonial Violence and Trauma
* Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare (2002): Argued that the trials were directly shaped by colonial frontier violence, especially the fallout of King Philip’s War and raids by Wabanaki and French forces.
* Many accusers were refugees, and the trauma of dislocation intensified spiritual paranoia.
Slavery and Racialised Others
* Elaine Breslaw, Tituba, Reluctant Witch (1996): Reimagined the role of Tituba, the enslaved woman whose confession helped spark the panic
* Showed how race, enslavement, and exotocism shaped Puritan imaginings of witchcraft.
* Recent work explores Puritan racial constructions, mapping how “otherness” informed ideas of the demonic.
* Interpretive Focus: War Trauma, settler colonialism, slavery, and racialised alterity
* Key Works: Norton, Breslaw, Linford Fisher (on Indigenous enslavement).
Memory, Myth, and Digital Humanities (Contemporary Trends)
Public History and Commemoration
* Salem as a mythic site of American identity: tourism, popular culture, and education have shaped how the trials are remembered.
* Scholars like Emerson Baker critique how Salem is romanticised, commercialised, and turned into a metaphor for persecution divorced from its historical specificity.
Digital Archives and Data Visualisation
* Projects like the Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project (University of Virginia) allow for interactive mapping, network analysis, and comparative statistics on the trials.
* Encourages participatory history and new forms of scholarly inquiry.
- Interpretive Focus: Memory politics, public mythmaking, access and digital storytelling
- Key Works: Emerson Baker, Benjamin Ray; UVA’s digital archive.
Interlude: Material and Visual Culture Approaches to Salem (1980s- Present)
Material Turn? **
* Shift from viewing Salem purely as legal or theological crisis to seeing it as a lived, embodied, and sensory experience.
* Scholars began analysing objects, gestures, clothing, domestic tools, and visual cues as central to how accusations were made and believed.
**Early Frameworks (1980s-1990s) **
* Influenced by cultural anthropology and performance theory (e.g., Geertz, de Certeau, Burke)
* Carol Karlsen’s The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (1987) tied gender and embodiment to witch identity.
* David Hall explored Puritan print and visual culture, while Laurel Thatcher Ulrich examined women’s domestic objects as cultural texts.
**Developments (2000s-2010s) **
* Scholars emphasised how trials were theatrical, sensory events- not just rational-legal proceedings.
* Visual signs (wild hair, poppets), sounds (screaming fits), and space (courtroom vs. home) seen as central to shaping belief.
* Mary Beth Norton and others linked embodied trauma to broader colonial and gender anxieties.
**Current Focus (2010s-Present) **
* Material culture now treated as core method in Salem historiography
* Focus on visual signs, bodily performance, and gendered suspicion.
* Scholars like Rachel Murrell and Katherine Howe explore dress, gesture, and the iconography of the witch in culture and memory
Scholarly Implications
* Inspired by feminist history, art history, and performance studies
* Challenges older, text-dominant approaches
* Centres non-elite, nonverbal, and material meaning-making.
* Engages with how Salem is remembered and visually represented today.
- Interpretive Focus: Embodiment, performance, visuality, gender, and space
- Key Works: Karlsen (1987), Hall, Ulrich, Norton, Murrell, Howe.
