American RevolutionPage 3
By John Fea November 14, 2017

The Greenwich Tea Burning: The Political and Religious Roots of Local Revolutionary Resistance

Today’s post accompanies “The Politics of Tea,” episode 160 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of the Doing History 2: To the Revolution! series. You can find supplementary materials for the episode on the OI Reader app, available through iTunes or Google Play. by John Fea In 1772, Philip Vickers Fithian, a twenty-four year old graduating senior at the College of New Jersey at Princeton, delivered his commencement disputation on the topic, “political jealousy is a laudable passion.” The disputation echoed the words of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon’s Cato’s Letters. It distinguished between “domestic and ecclesiastical jealousies,” which were harmful to the kind of Christian morality essential to sustaining a republican government, and “political” jealousy, which Fithian described as “rational, uniform, and necessary.” The truly “jealous” citizen kept a careful and virtuous watch on his government leaders to guard against vice and corruption. Political jealousy served as a unifying force. Fithian said that it had the “natural tendency” to “unite people” around interests closely associated with the preservation of a political community. Two years later, Fithian would witness political jealousy in action among the patriots of his hometown, the small hamlet of Greenwich, New Jersey. Read More

Doing History 9 min read
Read More
By Holly A. Mayer October 31, 2017

Following the Army

Today’s post accompanies “The Revolutionaries' Army,” episode 158 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of the Doing History 2: To the Revolution! series. You can find supplementary materials for the episode on the OI Reader app, available through iTunes or Google Play. By Holly A. Mayer Women have volunteered service in all American wars, but they have always been exempt from the civic obligation to serve in the military. As Linda Kerber has argued, that meant that they found themselves “outside the boundaries of [civic] reciprocity and entitlement.” If the definition of “citizen” included bearing arms as a communal obligation, but one could not or would not bear arms for the state, could that person be a citizen entitled to all attendant rights and privileges? When that question arose well after the Revolution in debates over giving women the right to vote, suffragists argued that the obligation entailed more than bearing arms: it was “risking one’s life for the republic, and that childbearing women repeatedly satisfied that obligation.” Rights activists then and later also contended that women preserved the republic in other ways.[i] Nonetheless, activists accepted the premise that willingness to meet the obligation to sustain the nation, meaning to risk life and property, was key to full citizenship. One may also argue that it was key to full representation in history. Read More

Doing History 12 min read
Read More
By William Huntting Howell September 26, 2017

The Pennsylvania Committee of Safety and the War at Home

Today's post accompanies "Revolutionary Committees and Congresses," episode 153 of Ben Franklin's World and part of the Doing History 2: To the Revolution! series. You can find supplementary materials for the episode on the OI Reader app, available through iTunes or Google Play. by William Huntting Howell Ask any revolutionary: there’s an enormous gap between the idea of systemic cultural change and its actual implementation. How do you get the guy who’s just trying to, like, make barrels over here to co-sign something as world-rending as a revolution? For American patriot factions in the 1770s, the burden of bridging the gulf between ideology and practice fell in large part on Committees of Safety. From their inception as enforcement mechanisms for the Continental Association’s mass boycotts of British consumer goods, Committees of Safety were all about the material effects of ideas. They were the ones insisting that it wasn't enough to merely think poorly of British treatment of the Colonies—you had to perform that disapproval for your neighbors or else risk public censure. The whole point of a Committee of Safety, in other words, was to make it clear to ordinary people that potentially abstract questions of international diplomacy were also concrete problems that they had to care about in their everyday lives. Read More

Doing History 12 min read
Read More
By oieahc September 12, 2017

The Histories of the Revolution

What was the American Revolution? When did it start, why did it start, and did it end with the Treaty of Paris… or the Constitution, or is it still unfolding?  These seem like simple questions, but Americans have been debating the answers since the Continental and British armies were still on the battlefield. Over the past century,  historians have argued that the Revolution was political, ideological, social, cultural. Some have claimed that revolutionary  ideas mattered most; others have explored the ways in which revolutionary  ideals fell short in practice for many Americans. Read More

Doing History 5 min read
Read More
By Martha Howard December 14, 2016

ICYMI: Doing History "To the Revolution!" sneak peek!

We are excited to announce a second year of collaboration with Liz Covart, creator of Ben Franklin’s World, in 2017. Together we bring you Doing History: To the Revolution! Professor Mary Beth Norton kicked off the season early with a sneak peek yesterday. Building on her recent article in the William and Mary Quarterly, Professor Norton asks… Read More

Doing History 2 min read
Read More

Recent Posts

July 11, 2024

A Folder of One’s Own: Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin’s Life in Poetry

April 29, 2024

J.E. Morgan

April 26, 2024

Noel Edward Smyth

Subscribe to the Blog