When most people think of the of the Puritans, they typically think of an incredibly strict religious society where people spend most of their time praying and think that most kinds of entertainment and recreation are evil. I would like to be able to say that this is not true at all, but it actually is partially true - many of the things that we think of as entertainment were looked upon as being evil or sinful. Still, the Puritans were human, and like all humans, they wanted to have some fun in their life and be entertained - they just had very different ways of doing this than we do today. I"m going to tell you a little bit about the things that they did for fun and entertainment.
One of the favorite leisure activities of the Puritans was reading. One of the biggest fears they had when they came to the New World was the fear that they would completely lose touch with English culture, and they tried to avoid this by keeping up with English literature as much as they possibly could. Despite the distance, they actually managed to keep getting supplies of books from England - the Winthrop expedition, that founded Massachusetts Bay Colony, brought, along with their supplies of grains, meat and other food, a collection of books that was large enough to keep the people well read for their first few years. The colonists also managed to get books sending "shopping lists" of book to their old friends and neighbors. They would literally receive boxes of books back.
By 1780, almost all the Puritan men and 80 percent of Puritan women had been taught to read, so they all enjoyed reading as a form of entertainment. As you can probably imagine, the Bible always remained a favorite book in Puritan colonies, and they preferred the Geneva Bible of 1560 to any other published version, because it contained maps, glossaries of names and events, and explanations of all the passages. One of the most common "family activities" was one member of the family reading Bible passages aloud, usually in the evening after finishing a meal.
