The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle : Marriage, Murder, and Madness in the Family of Jonathan Edwards / Ava Chamberlain.
2012
BX7260.E3 C48 2012
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Details
Title
The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle : Marriage, Murder, and Madness in the Family of Jonathan Edwards / Ava Chamberlain.
Author
Chamberlain, Ava, author.
ISBN
9780814723739
Published
New York, NY : : New York University Press, [2012]
Copyright
©2012
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource
Other Standard Identifiers
10.18574/nyu/9780814723722.001.0001 doi
Call Number
BX7260.E3 C48 2012
Dewey Decimal Classification
285.8092
Summary
Who was Elizabeth Tuttle?In most histories, she is a footnote, a blip. At best, she is a minor villain in the story of Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the greatest American theologian of the colonial era. Many historians consider Jonathan Edwards a theological genius, wildly ahead of his time, a Puritan hero. Elizabeth Tuttle was Edwards's "crazy grandmother," the one whose madness and adultery drove his despairing grandfather to divorce.In this compelling and meticulously researched work of micro-history, Ava Chamberlain unearths a fuller history of Elizabeth Tuttle. It is a violent and tragic story in which anxious patriarchs struggle to govern their households, unruly women disobey their husbands, mental illness tears families apart, and loved ones die sudden deaths. Through the lens of Elizabeth Tuttle, Chamberlain re-examines the common narrative of Jonathan Edwards's ancestry, giving his long-ignored paternal grandmother a voice. Tracing this story into the 19th century, she creates a new way of looking at both ordinary families of colonial New England and how Jonathan Edwards's family has been remembered by his descendants,contemporary historians, and, significantly, eugenicists. For as Chamberlain uncovers, it was during the eugenics movement, which employed the Edwards family as an ideal, that the crazy grandmother story took shape.The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle not only brings to light the tragic story of an ordinary woman living in early New England, it also explores the deeper tension between the ideal of Puritan family life and its messy reality, complicating the way America has thought about its Puritan past.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2023)
Series
North American Religions ; ; 6
Available in Other Form
print 9780814723722
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Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
Introduction
Prologue
[ 1 ] Hardy Puritan Pioneers
[ 2 ] Three Struggling Patriarchs
[ 3 ] A Brutal Murder
[ 4 ] A Criminal Lunatic
[ 5 ] A Messy Divorce
[ 6 ] The Inheritance
[ 7 ] Blood Will Tell
Conclusion
Notes
Index
About the Author
Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
Introduction
Prologue
[ 1 ] Hardy Puritan Pioneers
[ 2 ] Three Struggling Patriarchs
[ 3 ] A Brutal Murder
[ 4 ] A Criminal Lunatic
[ 5 ] A Messy Divorce
[ 6 ] The Inheritance
[ 7 ] Blood Will Tell
Conclusion
Notes
Index
About the Author