The Transformation of Virginia

Rhyss Isaac. The Transformation of Virginia: 1740-1790. 
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.

Isaac's book is a classic of cultural history; one which not only forced a reconsideration of the Revolutionary era, but also pointed the way towards a new methodology. Over three decades since it won the Pulitzer Prize for History, its status as a modern classic of Early American historiography seems secure.

He tells his story in a decidedly non-linear style, eschewing narrative and and an extended, explicit argument for the cumulative power of vignettes and descriptive sketches. Isaac confronts the challenge that faced any historian of colonial Virginia who wishes to match the depth of intellectual insight and cultural meaning scholars of colonial New England have been able to achieve--namely, the extreme paucity of written sources produced by Virginians relative to the wealth produced by the much more literate and bookish New Englanders. Isaac--as he explains in the Appendix, "Discourse on Method"--turned to alternate sources and alternate modes of "reading" them. Therefore, Part I consists of a large number of brief sketches of material and physical culture, broadly defined--houses and landscapes, yes, as well as clothing and furniture, but also dancing, horse-racing, seating arrangements at public events such as church and "court days" at the County courthouse. Gestures and public speaking are all "texts" that Isaac reads in order to recreate the world of colonial Virginia as it existed in 1740.

In Part II, he goes on to show that the colonial social order which seemingly was becoming more settled and secure by 1740 would soon be challenged and ultimately undermined by changes coming from within; changes rooted in the Great Awakening and the evangelical movement which continued to flourish and grow in its wake. Evangelicalism challenged the static and hierarchical nature of colonial society and encouraged the growth of individualism, which was incompatible with the corporate social idea which the traditional gentry both believed in and relied on to preserve their power and status. For the gentry, traditional Virginia religion--vested in the Anglican Church--was a bulwark against anarchy and change. For evangelicals, the Anglican establishment was corrupt and insufficient for the spiritual needs of Virginia's people. In the end, he traces the final throes of this struggle within the legislative battles which led to the passing of one of Thomas Jefferson's proudest accomplishments--the Act for Establishing Freedom of Religion. The temporary political alliance between mostly back-country Baptists and the liberal gentry of the Tidewater and Piedmont was, according to Isaac, a sign of the degree to which individualism was now regarded as the basis of society.

Part III briefly details how this new individualism took shape, in matters of changing political behaviors, new architectural norms, and a decline of the conviviality which the pre-war gentry had been famous (and prided itself) for. Virginia was still a largely rural, agrarian society--and it was still a slave society--but in many ways it entered the nineteenth century as a much different place than it had been a few decades earlier.