Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 4-3-2018 Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania Jonathon Derek Awtrey Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Cultural History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Political History Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Awtrey, Jonathon Derek, "Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania" (2018). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4544. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4544 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. JEWS AND THE SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN EARLY PENNSYLVANIA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Jonathon Derek Awtrey B.S. University of West Georgia, 2007 M.A. University of West Georgia, 2009 May 2018 For Christina, Sandra, Cole, Val, Suzy, April, Les, Carolyn, John, Nita, Kevin, and families ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The years of research, writing, and revision that resulted in this dissertation derived from conversations with family members, friends, colleagues, trusted mentors, and other scholars, archivists, and editors. My entire family, but especially my mother and sisters, have sustained my intellectual curiosity from an early age. Christina has been a constant source of inspiration and support. This study was informed foremost by my advisor Gaines Foster, whose own Moral Reconstruction aroused my curiosity about the intersection of religion and politics in American culture. When I arrived in Baton Rouge, his unbounded enthusiasm for my chosen subject and belief in my potential sustained me when I often doubted myself and the value of my work. He gave me space to craft and develop my own ideas, but he also encouraged me to think deeper about the organization and usefulness of those ideas. He was generous with his time and was quick to provide financial resources or letters of recommendation, which allowed me to conduct research and concentrate on writing and revisions while also teaching. For that I am deeply grateful. At LSU, I found a vibrant academic community of faculty and students. I have benefitted from Aaron Sheehan-Dean’s keen, engaging teaching style and editorial prowess, as well as from his always adept advice in the classroom, on paper, and in life. Suzanne Marchand encouraged my writing and intellectual growth, which boosted my confidence to follow my intellectual interests in Jews and Judaism. Mike Pasquier’s enthusiasm and encouragement from the first moments he learned of this project have been infectious and a constant source of motivation. Several scholars lent their advice and expertise, including Nancy Isenberg, whose critique of an early seminar paper molded my thinking about the importance of the nature of religious freedom; Andrew Burstein, whose critical eye sharpened my analytical skills; and the late David Culbert, iii Bill Cooper, Victor Stater, Stephen Andes, Jonathan Earle, and Jerry Kennedy offered sage advice. My fellow graduate students provided the much-needed distractions on Thursday evenings at Chimes, including Lindsay Silver, Tom Barber, Dave Brokaw, Garrett McKinnon, Andrew Johnson, Matthew Perreault, Zach Isenhower, Jeff Crawford, Erik Wagner, Erin Halloran, Alexis Hlavaty, Jessica Payne, Luke Hargroder, Fernando Rodriguez, Evan Caris, Sabrina Cervantez, Eric Broussard, Jeff Hobson, Tim Landry, James Wilkey, Ali Nabours, Jason Wolfe, Michael Robinson, Kat Sawyer Robinson, Andrew Wegmann, and Adam Pratt. Spencer McBride deserves special mention here because he read and critiqued this study and has been a constant supporter of my work and career. Such friends and mentors have made my career at LSU a memorable one. Before I arrived in Baton Rouge, my mentors, friends, and colleagues at the University of West Georgia provided my first intellectual home. This dissertation and my career have both benefited from the expertise and patronage of Keith Pacholl, Steve Goodson, and Dan Williams, whose graduate seminar on religion and politics set me upon this path more than a decade ago. Other scholars and friends shaped my intellectual growth, including John Ferling, Nadejda Williams, Sandy Pollard, Colleen Vasconcellos, Chuck Lipp, Gary VanValen, Keith Bohannon, Elaine MacKinnon, Aron MacKinnon, Will Avery, Nate Michalewicz, Richard Primuth, and John Michael Cunningham. Our weekly trivia team forged lasting memories. Keith Pacholl believed in me and my abilities, which led me onto this career path; he continues to champion my work and career. Dusty Dye, now a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Maryland, has been a constant source of conversation on our many conference trips over the years. Almost fifteen years ago, Justin Stephens, more than anyone else, worked closely with me to improve my writing and critical thinking. Those days at the coffeehouse and nights at the local brew pub are iv irreplaceable and have shaped me into who I am today. To this day, Justin remains my dearest friend in academe and in life. The Department of History at UWG, especially its chair Steve Goodson, believed in my teaching ability and he continues to write letters on my behalf. With deep respect and gratitude, many thanks to my UWG family. I have presented parts of this dissertation at historical conferences and seminars, which have sharpened my thinking about religious and political history in the colonial period and early republic. There are far too many individuals to enumerate here, but a few have been especially helpful. At the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era in 2014 at the University of Mississippi, Peter Messer’s comments forced me to reevaluate the politicization of prejudice in popular politics in the 1790s. When visiting the American Antiquarian Society in 2015, Steven Bullock generously discussed with me the connections between Judaism and Freemasonry, which reorganized and added depth to my examinations in chapter four. In 2015 and 2016, at meetings of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic at North Carolina State University and Yale University, respectively, Joanne Freeman and Barbara Oberg helped to focus my attention on the contours of political culture; Joshua Rothman and Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor underscored the social and cultural dimensions of capitalism. In 2016, at the annual meeting of the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies in Savannah, I met Paul Sivitz, whose expertise of Jewish history and eighteenth-century Philadelphia informed this dissertation; most important, his kindness and thoughtfulness made us fast friends. These academic settings in large part shaped chapters three and five. Later in the same year, the Front Range Early American Consortium at the University of Colorado, Boulder provided a cordial seminar environment, where Shelby Balik, Peter Wood, Jack Marrieta, Joshua Greenberg, Gloria Main, among others helped to further develop the themes examined in chapters one, two, and six. v Recently, a special topics conference on religion and politics in St. Louis led to fruitful conversations with Matthew Rainbow Hale, Reiner Smolenski, Michael Breidenbach, Adam Jortner, and Tara Strauch. Financial support in the form of grants, scholarships, assistantships, and fellowships from several institutions have supported this project. LSU’s Department of History graciously provided a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. Gaines Foster, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, and Victor Stater generously funded travel to archives and conferences. The Graduate School at LSU funded a fellowship for summer research and the Graduate School Dissertation Year Fellowship afforded me the time to write and revise this dissertation. The Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies funded two travel grants to attend its conferences. The American Jewish Historical Society’s Sid and Ruth Lapidus Fellowship resulted in essential sources that informs this work. Zachary Loeb and Boni Joi Koelliker of the AJHS staff deserve special mention for their assistance in locating specific sources. The American Jewish Archive’s Barnard and Audre Rapaport Fellowship also led to key discoveries in its vast collections. At the AJA, Kevin Proffit, Dana Hermann, and Gary Zola went above and beyond their responsibilities to assist me. Kevin and Dana introduced me to several useful contacts in the field, including Haim Sperber and Einat Libel-Hass, whose expertise and friendship shaped chapters four and six. Through these connections, moreover, I met Jonathan D. Sarna, whose sage advice and suggestions have saved this dissertation from several errors. Sarna graciously met with me in his Brandeis office; his deep knowledge of American Jewish history further shaped essentially every dimension of this study. For the last three years, Springfield College, particularly Tom Carty and Ian Delahanty, welcomed me into their academic home and provided me with the institutional