ABSTRACT
In this highly imaginative foray into the public and private worlds of mid-eighteenthcentury Virginians, Isaac takes the reader on a guided tour of an Anglican church, an important center of community life, and then of a gentry home, in many ways a public place. The boundary between private and public, sacred and profane, Isaac argues, was porous in early Virginia. Thus, Anglican churches were important places for reinforcing hierarchy and encouraging conviviality, and homes were important places for daily religious practices, important ceremonies, and displays of hospitality. Dance was a significant means of joining private and public worlds. Through dancing, Virginians expressed themselves about some of their most cherished values: self-assertion, display, competitiveness, and contest. Dancing also formed a significant bond, a common medium of expression, cementing together disparate social groups. While the lower orders imitated polite forms of dancing, the gentry in turn borrowed dance forms and musical accompaniments from their slaves.
