Sugar Creek

Winner of the 1986 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Award, this prize is given annually to the best scholarly study on American History in the period 1739-1848


"A rich description and insightful historical analysis of how a frontier community matured in its 'first generation.' This gracefully written study truly aims at a 'total history' of a locale."—Don H. Doyle
 

 
 

 



 

 

 

 
 



 

 

 
  
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 




"It is rare for an historian to find a vehicle in which he can express a multitude of his own and his profession's deepest concerns, but Faragher has found one here. The environment, the native peoples, the roles of men and women and families, the intertwinings of class and social pressures—all come together in this study of a Sangamon country town. . . . Faragher gives a strong, balanced interpretation of the meaning of community. Through his loving attention to the human condition, he should delight the scholar with his details and the local historian with his general understandings."—Robert V. Hine, Professor of History, University of California at Riverside


"John Faragher has somehow managed to epitomize the whole complex process of America's frontier settlement and community growth in this charmingly written history of Sugar Creek. By attempting the total history of an American rural community over time, he has not only given us an account of the lifestyles of men, women, and children, but has provided a continuity between America's rural past and its urban-industrial present that is so sadly lacking in most American historical writing. Indeed, Faragher believes that the family-oriented communities like Sugar Creek have not only persisted but have been a base for dealing with the modern world. Sugar Creek is a major new interpretation of America's rural past."—Howard R. Lamar, Yale University 



"[A] detailed case study of one rural community and a notably successful example of the new work being done on the social history of rural America. . . . Faragher has constructed a vivid portrait of everyday life as well as an analysis of how the community developed and changed."—George M. Fredrickson, New York Review of Books