The Power of Ordinary People: Demands and Visions for a More Just Society in Early America

Throughout the quarter, you have heard from marginalized peoples who protested and petitioned for the right not only to be included in the American political community, but also to have a say in what that community should look like and its obligations to its members—from participants in the impressment and tenant uprisings of the colonial period (Week 4 and Week 5), to the signatories of freedom petitions and women food rioters of the revolutionary era (Week 6 and Week 7), to the women factory workers and Black abolitionists of the Antebellum era (Week 10). Choose three or four groups/individuals to focus on. What were their demands and visions for a more just society? What do their successes and failures say about the power of ordinary people to make history in early America?