Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America

Join us for a virtual book talk with Karin Wulf to learn more about her new book on the power of genealogy in shaping Early America–and American society today.

Lineage tells the story of genealogy’s attraction and power, for individuals, families, and institutions alike, in eighteenth-century British America. In early America, people produced a profusion of information about their family connections, often because they were moved to write or create genealogies but also because they were required to by their church or their local government or a court. They created all manner of textual genealogies on sheets and scraps of bound and loose paper, in account books and in the blank pages and margins of printed books, but also in images and material form.

The power in family connections was governmental, legal, and religious, as well as cultural and social, echoing the structures of Britain itself—but in the American context it also structured slavery and freedom in which, despite the patriarchy of law and society, children’s status was determined by their mother’s. The twin forces of intimate meaning and instrumental purpose made genealogy in British America distinctly potent.

While the American Revolution wrought changes in American society, it did not disrupt the signal importance of genealogy or the powerful cultural logic of lineage—a legacy from the colonial period that would continue to mark the United States beyond its early history.

Email any questions to programs@14beacon.org.

SPEAKER BIO

Dr. Karin Wulf is the Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, and Professor of History at Brown University. A historian of early America focused on gender, family, and politics, she writes widely for both public and academic audiences about history, the worlds of scholarship and scholarly publishing, and libraries and archives. Her new book is Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in 18th Century British America. She serves on a variety of non-profit boards and is an incoming Vice-President of the American Historical Association.