M&D Deep Duck Where are all the children?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The Dickens and Salem references I made were side-conversations about grave-stones and indentured servants, not evidence to prove that you were mythologizing anything. Sorry if you misread them as a counter-argument to your post. As you say, different times, different places.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jan 23, 2015 3:57 PM
>To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: M&D Deep Duck Where are all the children?
>
>I'm merely describing the family and economic, the work conditions of
>the folks who lived in America, and more specifically in and around
>Philadelphia, when the novel commences, that is, 1787. I don't know
>why I'm being accused of mythologizing when the evidence against the
>description I'm providing, comes from Dickens novels and the Salem
>Trials. While Dickens did describe the period of abuse and neglect of
>children, some that he experiences in his childhood,  in his novels,
>he wasn't alive until 1812, and he was, obviously, born in England and
>lived there,  not in America. The Salem Trials were in 1692-93.
>
>
>
>On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 12:51 PM, Laura Kelber <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> The Salem witch hysteria began among indentured servant girls ( one can only
>> imagine the sexual and/ or physical abuse they must have endured within the
>> confines of such a repressive theocracy). Whether conscious or subconscious,
>> their accusations constituted a failed rebellion against the powers that be.
>>
>> Laura
>>
>>
>> Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>> I heard a piece on the radio recently about indentured servitude. A very
>> common and miserable status at the time.
>>
>> In New York State most land was owned by large holders and those who worked
>> on this land had great difficulty both legally and financially escaping a
>> condition of impoverished renters. Slavery was a common feature of
>> successful ventures.
>>
>> The farms had to be very large to sustain families and the unsustainability
>> of these practices eventually led directly to the violent seizure of western
>> lands.
>>
>> Some places were better than others, opportunities were many, but it is my
>> sense that you seem to be mythologizing the situation a bit.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 23, 2015, at 4:42 AM, alice malice wrote:
>>
>>> Though these Americans do carry with them some of the European Myths
>>> of Destruction, that they have come to a Virgin Land, to a Promised
>>> Land, to a New World, to a land of Savages, who must be Exterminated
>>> or made Noble, to a place that Providence had Promised their brave
>>> predecessors and so on, by now, they have new Myths, and they have a
>>> reality that is not European, not what Britannia Dreamed, but what
>>> they know. The streets are not paved with gold, their are no fountains
>>> of youth, but america is a place of incredible opportunity. The family
>>> is big because America can support big families. They can marry
>>> younger, get land and a home, prosper, be fruitful and multiply. And
>>> they do.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:40 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> If P wants to show us what might have been, what was possible, if only
>>>> the Americans had...he has to begin with prosperity and success, and
>>>> that is the case in Christmastide 1778. There were no serious economic
>>>> reasons, not even taxes, or taxes on Tea even, fro the colonies to
>>>> rebel. Things were mighty fine. But they had other reasons to get rid
>>>> of the English. The had money and power and people and prosperity and
>>>> they didn't need England so why not get rid of the then and make start
>>>> their own country? And this where it began with so much promise,
>>>> though there are dark and bloody hauntings, the murder of the Indians,
>>>> the enslaving of Africans, the destruction of the Earth etc.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 5:33 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> in 1775, the 13 colonies has a population of apx. 2.6mm, 2.1mm white,
>>>>> 540000 blacks, 50,000 or fewer Native American; 21% of the people
>>>>> lived in Virginia and 22% were in Penn. and Mass., 11% each. In
>>>>> Philadelphia there were 35,000. The 13 colonies were not dependent,
>>>>> for anything, on England, Europe, or anyplace else. Still the case in
>>>>> the US, where trade comprises a relatively small percentage of the
>>>>> Economy.   In 1775, the Colonies had 1/3 as many inhabitants as the
>>>>> mother country, and more than 30% of her economic output. As
>>>>> Franklin's famous demographic publications, though flawed, as were
>>>>> Malthusian Theories all, predicted, the colonies would, in a few
>>>>> generations, far outnumber the inhabitants in England.  This because
>>>>> the average family had 8 children in the colonies but only 4 in
>>>>> England. It was not the poor who, in their ignorance and poverty,
>>>>> living on the 1% of the wealth of the nation that were supporting
>>>>> large families, for other than the enslaved population, where family
>>>>> size was also 8 children, America was not 19th century industrial or
>>>>> urban Europe, the black poverty of Pip or  Blake's Chimney Sweeper did
>>>>> not exist in America, as it was only the 18th century, but more so
>>>>> because America was prosperous and people married younger and
>>>>> sustained large families on the land and wealth, not on poverty and
>>>>> infant mortality and abuse.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:37 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>>> a valid point  but the large families may not have been the ones
>>>>>> cashing in on economic growth.
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>-
>Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l