About the Book
In twenty-two original essays, leading historians reveal the radical impulses at the founding of the American Republic. Here is a fresh, new reading of the American Revolution that gives voice and recognition to a generation of radical thinkers and doers whose revolutionary ideals outstripped those of the “Founding Fathers.”
While the Founding Fathers advocated a break from Britain and espoused ideals of republican government, none proposed significant changes to the fabric of colonial society. Yet during this “revolutionary” period some people did believe that “liberty” meant “liberty for all” and that “equality” should be applied to political, economic, and religious spheres. Here are the stories of individuals and groups who exemplified the radical ideals of the American Revolution more in keeping with our own values today. This volume helps us to understand the social conflicts unleashed by the struggle for independence, the Revolution’s achievements, and the unfinished agenda it left to future generations to confront.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Alfred F. Young, Ray Raphael, and Gary B. Nash: “To Begin the World Over Again”
Part I: Revolutions
One
Alfred F. Young: Ebenezer Mackintosh: Boston’s Captain General of the Liberty Tree
Two
Ray Raphael: Blacksmith Timothy Bigelow and the Massachusetts Revolution of 1774
Three
T. H. Breen: Samuel Thompson’s War: The Career of an American Insurgent
Four
Gary B. Nash: Philadelphia’s Radical Caucus That Propelled Pennsylvania to Independence and Democracy
Five
Jill Lepore: A World of Paine
Six
David Waldstreicher: Phillis Wheatley: The Poet Who Challenged the American Revolutionaries
Part II: Wars
Seven
Philip Mead: “Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings”: The Betrayals of Private Joseph Plumb Martin, Continental Soldier
Eight
Michael A. McDonnell: “The Spirit of Levelling”: James Cleveland, Edward Wright, and the Militiamen’s Struggle for Equality in Revolutionary Virginia
Nine
Cassandra Pybus: Mary Perth, Harry Washington, and Moses Wilkinson: Black Methodists Who Escaped from Slavery and Founded a Nation
Ten
Jon Butler: James Ireland, John Leland, John “Swearing Jack” Waller, and the Baptist Campaign for Religious Freedom in Revolutionary Virginia
Eleven
Colin G. Calloway: Declaring Independence and Rebuilding a Nation: Dragging Canoe and the Chickamauga Revolution
Twelve
James Kirby Martin: Forgotten Heroes of the Revolution: Han Yerry and Tyona Doxtader of the Oneida Indian Nation
Part III: The Promise of the Revolution
Thirteen
Gregory Nobles: “Satan, Smith, Shattuck, and Shays”: The People’s Leaders in the Massachusetts Regulation of 1786
Fourteen
Terry Bouton: William Findley, David Bradford, and the Pennsylvania Regulation of 1794
Fifteen
Wythe Holt: The New Jerusalem: Herman Husband’s Egalitarian Alternative to the United States Constitution
Sixteen
Woody Holton: The Battle Against Patriarchy That Abigail Adams Won
Seventeen
Sheila Skemp: America’s Mary Wollstonecraft: Judith Sargent Murray’s Case for the Equal Rights of Women
Eighteen
Richard S. Newman: Prince Hall, Richard Allen, and Daniel Coker: Revolutionary Black Founders, Revolutionary Black Communities
Nineteen
Melvin Patrick Ely: Richard and Judith Randolph, St. George Tucker, George Wythe, Syphax Brown, and Hercules White: Racial Equality and the Snares of Prejudice
Twenty
Seth Cotlar: “Every Man Should Have Property”: Robert Coram and the American Revolution’s Legacy of Economic Populism
Twenty-one
Jeffrey L. Pasley: Thomas Greenleaf: Printers and the Struggle for Democratic Politics and Freedom of the Press
Twenty-two
Alan Taylor: The Plough-Jogger: Jedediah Peck and the Democratic Revolution
Afterword
Eric Foner
Acknowledgments
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
About the Author :
Alfred F. Young was professor emeritus of history at Northern Illinois University and was a senior research fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. He passed away in 2012.
Gary B. Nash is professor of history emeritus and director of the National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California.
Ray Raphael is the author of A People’s History of the American Revolution, Founding Myths, and several other books on the nation’s founding. He lives in northern California.
Review :
"The best essays are small gems of exposition, providing both the context and detail necessary to enable readers to recognize the important contributions of these previously unappreciated and largely unknown individuals. . . . In short, Revolutionary Founders is one step, but only one, toward a comprehensive account of the nation’s origins." —Mary Beth Norton, The New York Times Book Review
“In these 22 provocative essays, leading historians highlight Revolutionary-era people and movements that textbooks and standard accounts skip. . . . Revolutionary Founders aims to test the parameters of what we think we know with new and reinterpreted data and fresh theories. . . . [T]hey offer challenging, surprising perspectives on the turbulent crosscurrents that shaped our nation's birth.” —American History
"[A] uniformly strong collection, [by] an impressive array of historians—among them, T.H. Breen, Eric Foner, Jill Lepore and Alan Taylor. . . . Editors Young, Nash, and Raphael have solicited wisely, with each contributor adding an important dimension to the controlling theme: ‘We cannot have too much liberty.’ Adds immeasurably to our understanding of the Revolution’s full meaning." –Kirkus Reviews
"Fast-paced and readable, this remarkable book captures an American Revolution that has long been hiding in plain sight. I emerged with a new set of heroes, a fresh appreciation for complex stories, and a new sense of our own connection to a revolutionary past." –Linda K. Kerber, author of No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship
"Revolutionary Founders brilliantly restores the struggle for social equality to the central place in the history of American Revolution, and explains how the ‘spirit of leveling’ shaped the making of the new American Republic. For anyone interested in the sources of popular democracy in the United States, Revolutionary Founders is required reading." –Ira Berlin, author of The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations
"Revolutions free the imagination, making many things seem possible that once were deemed wild visions. Revolutionary Founders introduces into the pantheon of the American Revolution those rebels, radicals, and reformers who passionately committed themselves to act on the conviction that ‘all men are created equal.’" –Joyce Appleby, author of The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism
