One of the greatest hopes and expectations that accompanied American colonialism – from its earliest incarnation – was that Atlantic settlers would be able to locate new sources of raw silk, with which to satiate the boundless desire for luxurious fabrics in European markets. However, in spite of the great upheavals and achievements of Atlantic plantation, this ambition would never be fulfilled. By taking the commercial failure of silk seriously and examining numerous experiments across New Spain, New France, British North America and the early United States, Ben Marsh reveals new insights into aspiration, labour, environment, and economy in these societies. Each devised its own dreams and plans of cultivation, framed by the particularities of cultures and landscapes. Writ large, these dreams would unravel one by one: the attempts to introduce silkworms across the Atlantic world ultimately constituted a step too far, marking out the limits of Europeans' seemingly unbounded power.

Reveals how commodity failure, as much as success, can shed light on aspirations, environment, and economic life in colonial societies.

One of the greatest hopes and expectations that accompanied American colonialism - from its earliest incarnation - was that Atlantic settlers would be able to locate new sources of raw silk, with which to satiate the boundless desire for luxurious fabrics in European markets. However, in spite of the great upheavals and achievements of Atlantic plantation, this ambition would never be fulfilled. By taking the commercial failure of silk seriously and examining numerous experiments across New Spain, New France, British North America and the early United States, Ben Marsh reveals new insights into aspiration, labour, environment, and economy in these societies. Each devised its own dreams and plans of cultivation, framed by the particularities of cultures and landscapes. Writ large, these dreams would unravel one by one: the attempts to introduce silkworms across the Atlantic world ultimately constituted a step too far, marking out the limits of Europeans' seemingly unbounded power.

The eighteen volumes of Detailed Reports on the Salzburger Emigrants Who Settled in America (reproduced in sixteen discrete books) contain the diaries and letters of Lutheran pastors who ministered to the Salzburgers, German-speaking Protestant refugees, in Georgia. Samuel Urlsperger collected and edited these writings into the Urlsperger Reports printed at Orphanage Press, Halle, Germany, from 1735 to 1760. The original German publication, Ausführliche Nachricht von den saltzburgischen Emigranten, is available through the Internet Archive, but this English-language translation has not been available online until now. In the mid-eighteenth century, Samuel Urlsperger of the Lutheran Ministry in Augsburg edited the German edition of the Detailed Reports after having distributed the many reports to the faithful in Germany. He made major deletions for both diplomatic and economic reasons and suppressed proper names. His son, Johann August Urlsperger, succeeded him. He took even greater liberties with the text, deleting large sections and rearranging others. The English version, translated and edited by George Fenwick Jones, a German scholar, restores the deleted sections and the proper names and provides the original sequencing of the material. The Detailed Reports offer insight into daily life in colonial Georgia and provide precious details and vignettes on subjects that receive less attention in other sources, notably African Americans, women, silk production, and the cost of goods in a frontier colony. The Reports are an underutilized resource for the study of this period and an unparalleled source for the evolution of a rural community during the early years of the colony. The Georgia Open History Library has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this collection, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In Scientific Americans, Susan Branson explores the place of science and technology in American efforts to achieve cultural independence from Europe and America's nation building in the early republic and antebellum eras. This engaging tour of scientific education and practices among ordinary citizens charts the development of nationalism and national identity alongside roads, rails, and machines. Scientific Americans shows how informal scientific education provided by almanacs, public lectures, and demonstrations, along with the financial encouragement of early scientific societies, generated an enthusiasm for the application of science and technology to civic, commercial, and domestic improvements. Not only that: Americans were excited, awed, and intrigued with the practicality of inventions. Bringing together scientific research and popular wonder, Branson charts how everything from mechanical clocks to steam engines informed the creation and expansion of the American nation. From the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations to the fate of the Amistad captives, Scientific Americans shows how the promotion and celebration of discoveries, inventions, and technologies articulated Americans' earliest ambitions, as well as prejudices, throughout the first American century.