On the Spot: Mary Beth Norton
‘What historical topic have I changed my mind on? That the Indian war then occurring to the north of Salem was crucial to the expansion and perpetuation of the witchcraft crisis.’
Why are you a historian of Early America and the Atlantic world?
I had a ‘conversion experience’ in graduate school reading a 1765 pamphlet by James Otis, Jr, a Boston radical. It was as though he spoke to me through the centuries.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
Don’t make assumptions.
Which history book has had the greatest influence on you?
Not a book, but an article: Joan W. Scott’s ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’ (1986).
What book in your field should everyone read?
Bernard Bailyn’s biography of Thomas Hutchinson.
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
The Salem witch trials, in 1692. Many documents have not survived so certain important questions cannot be answered.
Which historian has had the greatest influence on you?
My mentor, Bernard Bailyn.
Which person in history would you most like to have met?
Abigail Adams.
How many languages do you have?
Two, English and French (with some ‘tourist’ Spanish).
What is the most common misconception about your field?
That it only studies Puritan New England.
What’s the most exciting field in history today?
Early Atlantic and Pacific world.
What historical topic have you changed your mind on?
Reading documents from 1692 convinced me that the Indian war then occurring to the north of Salem was crucial to the expansion and perpetuation of the witchcraft crisis.
Who is the most underrated person in history…
Judith Sargent Murray.
… and the most overrated?
Alexander Hamilton.
Is there an important historical text you have not read?
Plutarch’s Lives.
What’s your favourite archive?
The National Archives at Kew.
What’s the best museum?
National Museum of African American History, part of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.
What technology has changed the world the most?
Birth control.
Recommend us a historical novel...
John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor; he used original documents to brilliantly recreate life in 17th-century Maryland.
... and a historical drama?
Arthur Miller, The Crucible.
You can solve one historical mystery. What is it?
Locating the full court records for the Salem witch trials.
Mary Beth Norton is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emerita at Cornell University and the author of ‘I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer’: Letters on Love and Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column (Princeton University Press, 2025). She first wrote for History Today in 1968.
