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 Outline on Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia
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  See Also:  
  -  An Overview of the Methods of the Social Sciences
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  -  An Overview of Examples of Research in the Social Sciences
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  The award-winning study, Puritan Boston & Quaker Philadelphia, by E. Digby Baltzell (1979) examined which regions in the US had produced more notable individuals, & why certain regions produced more notable individuals
 
  Baltzell created his research topic through induction & serendipity  
  Baltzell happened to visit Bowdoin College in Maine & was surprised to see that in one year, 1825, Bowdoin had graduated three notables:  Hawthorne, Longfellow, & Pierce
 
  Baltzell wondered how such a small college in a relatively small state could produce so many famous people
 
  Baltzell decided to do an analysis of the Dictionary of American Biography, which was comprised of records of more than 13,000 men & women in 20 volumes
 
  The Dictionary gave Baltzell a broad measure of who was great  
  Baltzell also needed a measure that would help him judge levels of greatness
 
  To do this, he counted the number of lines in each record, assuming, as did the editors of the Dictionary, that the greater the person, the longer their record
 
  Thus, Baltzell chose to examine the 75 men & women w/ the longest record in the Dictionary
 
  Baltzell found:
 
       Massachusetts had the most famous people:  21
 
       Pennsylvania had 2
 
       New England States had 31
 
       Mid Atlantic States had 12
 
       The Boston area had the most famous people
 
  Baltzell found that Weber's theory as delineated in the Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism explained the variations in the locations of famous people  
  Weber believed that a person's life-chances were largely the result of their religious beliefs
 
  Boston was a Puritan settlement, founded by people dedicated to the pursuit of public achievement
 
  Puritans celebrated hard work as a means to glorify god, & looked upon public prominence as a sign that one was in god's grace  
  Philadelphia was settled by Quakers, who shunned elitism & displays of achievement
 
  Quakers believe that all people are inherently good & so saw little need for strong social institutions to "save" individuals from sinfulness  
  While many Quakers became wealthy, their egalitarian way of life made everyone look upon everyone else as a social equal  
  Quakers discourage one another from standing out by seeking fame or pursuing public office  
  Baltzell describes Boston & Philadelphia as "social test tubes" into which two different cultures were poured:  Puritanism & Quakerism  
  For centuries later, we can see that different "chemical reactions" occurred in the "social test tubes" of Boston & Philadelphia  
  The two belief systems set in motion different toward personal achievement, which shaped the history of each region  
  Even today, cultures seem influential in determining life-chances / success  
  The Kennedy's, who are Catholic, demonstrate the Puritan pursuit of fame & leadership  
  Suggestions for further research suggested by Baltzell's work on fame & culture include  
  a.  a comparison of regions by religion & achievement  
  b.  a utilization of  the entire 13,000 famous people in the Dictionary to determine whether the religion  ::  achievement correlation holds  

The End