Seasonal Topics and Folkways

These videos cover a variety of folklore and customs of early New England.

 

Duration:

9 minutes, 39 seconds

This video is the first of a four part series chronicling the changing attitudes and beliefs in the supernatural among the people of early New England. This episode focuses on the late 17th century when belief in the supernatural was a complex and terrifying matter of faith.

 

Duration:

15 minutes, 30 seconds

In this video, the second in a four-part series, we explore the role of ghost stories during the period of the American Revolution, an "enlightened" age when ghost stories were sometimes seen as childish and other times used for political purposes.

 

Duration:

17 minutes, 51 seconds

In this video, the third in a four part series, we explore the emergence in the early 19th century of a popular literature genre known as "American Gothic." The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is, perhaps, one of the most famous works in this genre.

 

Duration:

19 minutes, 34 seconds

In this video, the last in a four-part series, we focus on the rise of horror-romance in the mid-19th century and the writing of Nathaniel Hawthorne.