Overview

Early modern Quakers looked to their dreams to gain spiritual insight and developed a potent system of dreamwork that acted simultaneously as a device for gaining and retaining authority and as a democratizing force. Night Journeys recounts how Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic turned their sleeping experiences into powerful stories that advanced a more inclusive - but still imperial - vision of colonial and Revolutionary America. Quakers did not keep their dreams to themselves. On the American mainland, Caribbean plantations, and in the British Isles, Quakers were competing to shape their imperial culture when they circulated dreams beyond meeting-house walls and influenced larger transatlantic movements for reform. Covering a broad time span that begins with the English civil war and ends with the creation of the American republic, Carla Gerona argues that dreams provided Quakers with mental maps to influence the values of their emerging colonial society, usually, though not exclusively, in progressive ways. Night visions, as Quakers often termed their dreams, contributed to social and cultural changes such as the abolition of slavery and religious reform. Simultaneously, dreams helped Quakers define and delineate their mission in America and the world, fostering innovative concepts of individuality, community, nation, and empire.

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9780813923109

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Reviews

Night Journeys is a fascinating study of the meaning of dreams in the history of early Quakerism. Gerona combines meticulous scholarship with a sophisticated use of dream theory to trace the changing meanings of dreams as they were told and retold, both within and outside the Quaker community. - Phyllis Mack, Rutgers University; Carla Gerona offers an interesting and rich exploration of the Quakers' use of dreams and dream narratives. Dreams both guided and justified Quaker action, legitimating their potentially subversive and troubling religious, political, and social practices. There has been far too little attention to the role of dreams and dreaming in early America, and this book makes an important and exciting contribution. - Ann Marie Plane, University of California, Santa Barbara

Author Information

Carla Gerona is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas, Dallas.

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