This book aims at retracing the history of New Jersey from the 17th century to the early 19th, with particular reference to the history of citizenship - mostly understood as the evolution of New Jerseyans' modes of political participation and evolving patterns of inclusion and exclusion. This history has shown that those who remained on the margins of formal political rights nevertheless found informal ways to express their political views (writings; demonstrations; boycotts, etc.). Alongside less conventional citizenship, the present study devotes considerable attention to electoral participation and party competition too, recognizing the centrality of elections in the history of the state. It documents the history of the extension of voting rights in the colony, then state, of New Jersey, which is of particular interest because, towards the end of the 18th century, it displayed clear signs of moving towards a relatively progressive citizenship regime compared to other states. This evolution was precocious and explicit. However, the history of the extension of voting rights was not linear and married women with property, for instance, continued to struggle later on in history to recover voting rights that they had only gained temporarily. This history of citizenship in New Jersey shows the importance of contextual specificities and local practices, some of them being shared with other colonies and states. All in all, by combining an attention for informal participation with a more conventional understanding of politics, and by examining the debates as well on the extension of the suffrage at various points in time, the book offers a comprehensive history of citizenship in New Jersey, reflecting broader developments in the politics of the early American Republic.
This volume provides the hitherto unpublished letters of George the Gold Rush to California in 1849. Until his return to Kentucky in 1854, George Murrell wrote many lengthy letters to his family and friends, thereby offering an abundance of interesting details about the Gold Rush years, such as travel conditions on the trail, daily life in the mining camps, the development of political and legal institutions in California, the presence of various communities such as the Chinese and Hawaiians, and of course his relationship with his slave Reuben. But his correspondence also forms a rich and intimate self-portrait, as we discover a young man endowed with a romantic soul and a pious heart, who is much more versed in poetry and literature than in the down-to-earth mining techniques, and who frankly expresses his hopes and disappointments, as well as a profound homesickness which eventually gives way to an ecstatic description of California. These letters, it is hoped, will provide useful information to the expert and an enjoyable panorama of the gold rush experience to the nonspecialist.
