Article Critiques
Morgan Katsarelas
HIS3600
Professionalizing History Majors
Spring 2025
Essay Critique 1
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James Axtell “The White Indians of Colonial America” The William and Mary Quarterly Vol.32, No.1(1975): 55-88, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1922594?searchText=white+indians+in+colonial+america&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dwhite%2Bindians%2Bin%2Bcolonial%2Bamerica%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A0f201d684706856803679ac8e144f35c&seq=1
The White Indians of Colonial America is a historiographic essay by James Axtell that details the experiences of white settlers captured by Indians in New England during the eighteenth century in an exploration of why many white captives chose to remain with their Indian captors and the Indians they attempted to convert still preferred the Indian way of life. Axtell argues that the desire to convert the natives stemmed from preconceived notions regarding savagism and civilization (Axtell pg. 55).
The Europeans not only believed the Indians capable of conversion, but were convinced that the Indians would want to be converted after they experienced English civilization (Axtell pg. 55). These assumptions were proven false by the refusal of Indians and captured colonists to choose “civilization” over the Indian way of life. During the first 150 years of interactions between white settler and the Indians, colonists were typically stolen and held for ransom. Over time, the difficulty in acquiring payment from the poor colonists, as well as the loss of tribe members to disease and fighting, led to a different motive for the capture of white colonists: adoption to replace lost tribe members (Axtell pg. 59).
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Axtell heavily focuses on white colonists abducted in the New England colonies and taken into Canada. The captured white settlers are typically young children and young women (Axtell pg. 58). Many of the white captives grew extremely attached to their captors and the societies into which they were adopted – so much so that they were visibly distraught when they were returned to the English (Axtell pg. 63). Axtell frequently relies on the accounts of Col. Henry Bouquet and Reverend William Smith of Philadelphia, who functioned as Bouquet’s designated historian in 1764-1765 while retrieving the captives, in his description of the white captives’ responses to returning to “civilization.” If not for “militarily enforced peace treaties,” the captives likely would not have come back to the English (Axtell pg. 62).
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The English faced several difficulties upon the return of their captives including making them want to stay and reuniting them with their loved ones (Axtell pg. 63-64). Axtell relies primarily on powerful firsthand accounts from captive settlers like Benjamin Gilbert, Mary Jemison, and Thomas Gist in his subsequent chronicling of the experiences of white captives upon being taken by the Indians. Firsthand accounts from restored captives defied misconceptions about Indian morals, describing warm affection for children, a high esteem for virtuous living, and a deep abhorrence of rape (Axtell pg. 67-68, pg. 85-86). White captives would take on a given role in their adopted family and the overall tribe but could also rise to positions like chieftain (Axtell pg. 80). Captives would even adopt behavior more brutal than that of the Indians toward outsiders (Axtell pg 86-87).
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The reluctancy of captives to return to civilization dumbfounded the English colonists. The white captives may have preferred to stay among the Indians because values like integrity and a sense of community may have been esteemed by the English, but they were more successfully implemented by the so-called savages (Axtell pg. 88).​
Morgan Katsarelas
HIS 3600
Professionalizing History Majors
Spring 2025
Essay Critique 2
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Gullett, Gayle. “‘Our Great Opportunity’: Organized Women Advance Women’s Work at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.” Illinois Historical Journal 87, no. 4 (1994): 259–76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40192854?searchText=grand+opportunity+bertha+palmer&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dgrand%2Bopportunity%2Bbertha%2Bpalmer%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Aaab4aa713fcc0bbbc782f3c5923bba00&seq=1
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"Our Great Opportunity": Organized Women Advance Women's Work at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 is an essay by Gayle Gullett that analyzes the participation of “organized womanhood” – a term she uses to refer to clubs, unions, societies, and organizations for women – at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Gullett argues that “activists of the late-nineteenth-century women’s movement fought a series of political battles to present their message at the World’s Columbian Exposition,” (Gullett pg. 259). Organized womanhood was comprised of women from a variety of social classes and formed in response to the exploitation of women in the labor force, though it was primarily the wealthy elite who served in positions of leadership at the exposition (Gullett pg. 260-263).
Both suffragists like May Eliza Wright Sewall and non-suffragists organized women’s meetings at the exposition (Gullett pg. 263). The exhibits about the work of women of color implied that women of color did less skilled labor than white women (Gullett pg. 270). Groups like factory workers were not on display and organizations like the American Federation of Labor were excluded from the exhibits in the Woman’s Building (Gullett pg. 267). Speaker at the Congress of Labor and the Congress of Representative Women were more inclusive (Gullett pg. 269).
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Despite varying personal agendas and issues of racial and class disparity in women’s exhibits, women throughout the various organizations agreed that gender inequality was a problem and they “committed to a campaign of equal wages for women workers,” (Gullett pg.262-266). “For organized women, the redefinition of women’s work would redefine womanhood and that was the primary opportunity offered by the fair,” (Gullett pg. 263). Organized women embraced a broad definition of women’s work and emphasized that women who worked out of necessity to support their family did so out of the same moral obligation women had to manage a home (Gullett pg. 263).
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The movement argued that affluent women were “morally obligated to crusade against the exploitation of working women by the labor market,” leading to the involvement of wealthy socialites like Bertha Honore Palmer and Ellen Martin Henrotin (Gullett pg. 260-266). Personal letters and speeches from the wealthy elite provided firsthand accounts of council meetings as well as the dedication of the Woman’s Building at the exposition, where Palmer stated, “organized women’s first priority was the advancement of wage-earning, working-class women,” (Gullett pg. 265). Photographs of the building, the exhibits, and several key women were also included in the article.
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In addition to internal politics, the Board of Lady Managers faced opposition from male managers at the exposition (Gullett pg. 273). Internal reports from women in attendance, official publications, and articles in the press would similarly disagree about the benefits and outcome of organized womanhood’s participation in the exposition, but Gayle contends that women’s causes were strengthened by the experience (Gullett pg. 275-276).
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In the end, a report by Virginia C. Meredith concluded that women’s advancement was stifled by men and was likely to remain so until “men no longer wanted to maintain women’s subordination,” (Gullett pg. 273-274). Official publications by the fair proclaimed, “men gave women their ‘grandest opportunity’,” (Gullett pg. 274). Despite disparities and male opposition, the representation of women at the fair led to increased advocacy among women (Gullett pg. 276).