Dedham Society essays

Dedham Society essays A New England Town tells the history of a town called Dedham and how it progressed in its first hundred years of existence. The town of Dedham tried to form an utopian society through its views of morality. These views were incorporated into the towns social, religious, and political aspects of living. The differences of the past and modern society can be seen in the social, religious, and political development of the first hundred years. As I mentioned above the ideals of the Dedham society were that of an utopian. This meant that the people of Dedham should work together, so that no one would go without the bare essentials. It was believed that the needs for a mans family came before a mans greed for land. As the original settlers died off, so did their beliefs as well. The people began to look out for the individual self instead of the group, because of the overcrowding of citizens that was starting to occur. Men not being able to have a stable way of life for their families led to them fencing in their property, not agreeing upon what types of crops to grow, and going out for their own ambitions. The new ideology that stemmed from this was the basis of what we call modern American ideals. Today, Americans tend to focus more on being successful as an individual than as a whole. Viewing the political perspective of Dedham, we notice the differences of America today and America then. At the beginning of Dedham and its political realm the most successful people from England ruled the town and its functions. The Townspeople did have a voice in what happened in the town but this should not be confused with the definition of Democracy in modern times. The people who could vote had to pay a certain amount of tax on their property, which led to a limited number of voters. They were striving towards the goal of complete uniformity and unanimous decision-making. T...