Ordinary Americans and the Constitution

You may want to start by reading some of Professor Nash's books on some of the "ordinary Americans" of the eighteenth century:

Class and Society in Early America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1970.

Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia's Black Community. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000.

The Unknown American Revolution the Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America. New York: Viking, 2005.

My resource pages for James Horton's essay in this issue should provide you the information you need for African Americans in the era:

http://www.historynow.org/09_2007/ask2f.html

These recent studies of the skilled workers of the new republic -- artisans and mechanics -- are well worth reading:

Quimby, Ian M.G., ed. The Craftsman in Early America. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984.

Rock, Howard B., et al., eds. American Artisans: Crafting Social Identity, 1750-1850. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

_____. Artisans of the New Republic: The Tradesmen of New York City in the Age of Jefferson. New York: New York University Press, 1979. This is an older book, but not dated.