Unobscured Season 1 Sources

General Resource Links

Reading List

Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (New York: Vintage Books, 2002)

A comprehensive narrative of events by an enormously accomplished historian, this account of the Salem witchcraft crisis is a landmark work in interpreting the events of 1692. By discussing the accusers, judges, and victims of the witch hunt in light of the violence of colonization and the wartime instability of the Massachusetts government, Norton offers a scholar’s rejoinder to the various theorists and interpreters of the crisis. Helpful sidebars on essential issues, and authoritative summaries in the introduction and conclusion, make Norton’s book a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the current historical approach to the Salem trials.

Records of the Salem Witch Hunt, edited by Bernard Rosenthal et al., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

The definitive collection of the legal documents surrounding the witch trials, compiled by a team of scholars whose mastery of the material is unparalleled. For readers who want to explore the warrants, indictments, testimonies, and trial transcripts that still exist, and to read those documents in the language of the 1690s, this is the best first stop. Essays on trial procedures, the language of the colonies, and other helpful context make this an extraordinarily useful resource.

Marilynne Roach, The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege (New York: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004)

An invaluable reference for readers who want a deep understanding of the Salem crisis timeline. Roach, the scholar responsible for compiling the biographical information presented in Rosenthal’s Records, here collects and catalogs the significant events from around Massachusetts that preceded, propelled, and followed from the witch hunt in 1692. In well organized sequence, the entry for each day includes relevant happenings in Boston, Maine, Gloucester, western Massachusetts, London, and more—situating the events in Salem within the colonial world of their time.

Marilynne Roach. Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2013)

Carefully selecting women from up and down the social ladder of early Massachusetts to bring the reader into the action, Six Women of Salem builds on the foundation of Roach’s previous work to tell the story of the witchcraft crisis through intimate portraits, showing that the wave of accusations swept up slave, merchant, farmer, servant, young and old alike. Unafraid of a little speculation that puts the reader in the fields, streets, pews, and courtrooms where events unfolded, this excellent storytelling approach is deeply informed by Roach’s comprehensive knowledge of the historical documents, giving readers the before and after in the lives of women at the heart of the crisis.

Emerson Baker, A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)

Published in Oxford University Press’s series Pivotal Moments in American History, A Storm of Witchcraft brings together the insights and discoveries from Tad Baker’s lifetime of teaching American History at Salem State University. Beginning with a perfectly compressed overview of events, Storm of Witchcraft moves through explorations of the various facets of colonial life that contributed to the crisis, all with an eye toward interpretations of what happened and a pointed assessment of the significance of the Salem crisis for American life.