Bad Books and Bad Boys: The Transformation of Gender in Eighteenth-Century Northampton, Massachusetts

Abstract

N the spring of 1744, clergyman Jonathan Edwards learned that a number of boys in his parish had Books in keeping, which they improved to promote lascivious and obscene Discourse among the young People. Because the boys were subject to the discipline of the church, Edwards put the matter to the brethren, who appointed a committee to investigate the incident. The committee ultimately secured confessions and promises to reform from several of the accused, thus bringing the matter to an apparently satisfactory conclusion. According to an account written by fellow minister Samuel Hopkins some fifteen years later, however, this minor disciplinary proceeding occasioned a major controversy, which drove a wedge between the minister and his parishioners. In Hopkins's opinion, the so-called bad book affair seemed in a great Measure to put an end to Mr. Edwards's Usefulness at Northampton, and doubtless laid a Foundation for the congregation's 1750 vote to dismiss him.' Ever since Hopkins's early assessment, scholars have been trying to understand how such a powerful and successful clergyman as Edwards could have been so summarily ousted from Northampton, and many have followed Hopkins's lead in attending to the specifics of the bad book affair. A majority of the boys implicated in the scandal were members of Northamp-