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Book Review
| After the Siege: A Social History of Boston, 1775–1800. By Jacqueline Barbara Carr. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2005. xvi, 318 pp. $40.00, isbn 1-55553-629-8.)
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| Given the amount of ink that has been expended documenting every detail of events in Boston from 1765 until the battles of Lexington and Concord, it is surprising how little has been written about life there after hostilities broke out. Jacqueline Barbara Carr has filled that gap with an engaging social history of the city covering the period 1775–1800. In her prologue, Carr promises "to provide a social portrait of Boston ... focusing on the lives of lower- and middle-income groups," and she is indeed extremely diligent in turning up information that avoids the elite bias of such traditional sources as diaries and letters (p. 8). |
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Chief among her accomplishments has been compiling a vast database of late eighteenth-century Bostonians based on the Boston Taking Books. The town's tax assessors carefully jotted down a wealth of information in these notebooks including lists of the real property, address, and occupation of each head of household. The Taking Books, now housed at the Boston Public Library, are in parlous condition, and access is closely restricted. |
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