Founding Myths (45 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A
s usual, I thank my wife, Marie Raphael, for sharing her ideas, conjuring key phrases, and editing portions of the manuscript. Gilles Carter gave the original work a careful reading and offered many useful suggestions. Marc Favreau and Cathy Dexter gave excellent editorial assistance. Anthony Arnove, Jeff Pasley, Howard Zinn, and Hugh Van Dusen nurtured the idea in its formative stages, and Jeff Kleinman persuaded me to broaden the scope. Several scholars commented on portions of the manuscript pertaining to their fields of research: Al Young, Pauline Maier, Gary Nash, Colin Calloway, James Merrell, Andrew Burstein, and Cassandra Pybus. I hope I have done justice to their suggestions; my own views are not always the same as theirs. Others gave friendly words of advice or encouragement: Mike McDonnell, Eric Foner, David Hackett Fischer, and Gary Kornblith. David McCullough provided a key reference. Gilles Carter helped locate and identify pictures, as did Jessica Reed from the Granger Collection, while John Angus put the artwork together. I thank Jack Bareilles, Gayle Olson-Raymer, and Delores McBroome for involving teachers in the project. My research would not have been possible without assistance from Julia Graham and the Interlibrary Loan Department of Humboldt State University.

NOTES

Introduction: Inventing a Past

  
1
.
  
For national narratives in other nations, see Stefan Berger, ed.,
Writing the Nation: A Global Perspective
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

  
2
.
  
Although Trumbull's painting actually depicts the presentation of the Declaration to Congress by a five-man committee, which occurred on June 28, the date “July 4, 1776” was added to the title when it was placed in the Capitol Rotunda, giving the impression that the scene depicted the signing of the document, which supposedly occurred on that date. For when the Declaration of Independence was actually signed, see chapter 15.

  
3
.
  
Thomson quotations cited in Benjamin Rush to John Adams, February 12, 1812,
The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–1813
, John A. Schutz and Douglas Adair, eds. (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1966), 210; Benjamin Rush,
Autobiography of Benjamin Rush
, George W. Corner, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), 155, cited in J. Edwin Hendricks,
Charles Thomson and the Making of a New Nation, 1729–1824
(Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1979), 189. Thomson extended his idea of voluntary censorship to others: on one occasion, he urged David Ramsay, who was writing a history of the Revolution, to delete a story that was “too low for history” and to change some phrases “which did not please” and seemed “too common to comport with the dignity of history” (Hendricks,
Charles Thomson
, 164).

  
4
.
  
Noah Webster,
A Collection of Essays and Fugitive Writings
(Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1790; reprint edition, Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1977), 23.

  
5
.
  
The text that includes virtually all of the tales is Joy Hakim's
A History of US
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). This is no accident, for Hakim, in undertaking the task of making history fun, has chosen stories for their appeal rather than their veracity.
In her keen desire to make history inclusive, however, she has managed to tell the story of African Americans and Native Americans at the time of our nation's founding much more extensively and accurately than in most other texts.

  
6
.
  
I do not mean, however, to include professional scholars within the “we” who still take these tales at face value and do whatever it takes to promote a sense of belonging. Some scholars have done an excellent job in deconstructing the traditional stories, and I draw on their work liberally, but I also extend their scope by examining not just one tale at a time but the entire rubric. We are dealing here not just with the ear of the elephant or its tail, but with the creature itself. The telling of history has been seriously skewed—more so, I think, than even most scholars have imagined.

  
7
.
  
I use the term “patriots” with some hesitation. At the time, loyalists as well as rebels would have considered themselves “patriots,” for they too thought they were defending their country. But since the term has long denoted a particular group—those who opposed British policies and eventually the British army—I cede to common usage and call the rebels “patriots.”

  
8
.
  
Ray Raphael,
The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord
(New York: The New Press, 2002), 168.

1: Paul Revere's Ride

  
1
.
  
David Hackett Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 331. This chapter draws extensively on Fischer's research.

  
2
.
  
The poem is reprinted in Edmund S. Morgan, ed.,
Paul Revere's Three Accounts of His Famous Ride
(Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1961).

  
3
.
  
Copley's portrait, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is dated 1768–1770.

  
4
.
  
William E. Lincoln, ed.,
The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, with an Appendix Containing the Proceedings of the County Conventions
(Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 148.

  
5
.
  
Morgan,
Paul Revere's Three Accounts
, np.

  
6
.
  
Pennsylvania Gazette
, June 7, 1775. Later in his article Gordon mentioned Revere by name, but only as a witness to the firing of the first shots at Lexington.

  
7
.
  
William Gordon,
The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America
(Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969; first published in 1788), 1: 477.

  
8
.
  
David Ramsay,
The History of the American Revolution
(Philadelphia: R. Aitken and Son, 1789; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1990), 1: 187.

  
9
.
  
John Marshall,
The Life of George Washington
(New York: AMS Press, 1969; first published 1804–1807), 2: 211.

10
.
  
Mercy Otis Warren,
History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations
(Boston: E. Larkin, 1805; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1988), 1: 184. Warren's book has been transcribed for the Internet by Richard Seltzer, 2002, at
www.samizdat.com/warren/
.

11
.
  
Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 328.

12
.
  
Morgan,
Paul Revere's Three Accounts
, np.

13
.
  
Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 329.

14
.
  
Freeman Hunt,
American Anecdotes: Original and Select
(Boston: Putnam and Hunt, 1830).

15
.
  
Morgan,
Paul Revere's Three Accounts
, np.

16
.
  
Richard Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1903; reprint edition, Da Capo Press, 1970; first published in 1849), 57–61.

17
.
  
Benson J. Lossing,
Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851), 1: 523.

18
.
  
George Bancroft,
History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the Continent
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1879; first published 1834–1874), 4: 517.

19
.
  
Bancroft and Lossing wrote approximately 1,500 pages each on the Revolution. Bancroft, who spins a coherent narrative, weaves in about one good ministory per page, while Lossing, who uses an entirely anecdotal approach, works in several per page. Lossing published 1,095 visual images, including several hundred portraits and signatures of famous revolutionaries, but he offered no image of Revere or his ride. For the treatment of history-as-anecdote in the antebellum nineteenth century, see chapter 15.

20
.
  
Although Longfellow believed strongly in abolitionism—in 1842 he published a book,
Poems on Slavery
, that reflected his abolitionist sentiments—he did not actively participate in any of the reform movements of the mid–nineteenth century. Instead of engaging with others toward common goals, he wrote poems and told stories with featured protagonists.

21
.
  
Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 90–112, 124–148.

22
.
  
Edward Eggleston,
A History of the United States and Its People, for the Use of Schools
(New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888), 168.

23
.
  
Reuben Post Halleck,
History of Our Country, for Higher Grades
(New York: American Book Co., 1923), 179.

24
.
  
Ruth West and Willis Mason West,
The Story of Our Country
(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935), 152; Gertrude Hartman,
America: Land of Freedom
(Boston: D.C. Heath and Co., 1946), 154–155.

25
.
  
John Fiske,
The American Revolution
(Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1891), 1:121. For Fiske as “the Bancroft of his generation,” see Michael Kraus and Davis D. Joyce,
The Writing of American History
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 181.

26
.
  
Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 337.

27
.
  
Esther Forbes,
Paul Revere and the World He Lived In
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942); Fischer,
Paul Revere's Ride
, 338.

28
.
  
Joy Hakim,
A History of US
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 3: 71–73. Although Hakim does include Dawes and Prescott, she passes on the signal-light tale precisely as Longfellow conjured it: “Someone had to get a warning to those towns—and fast. It would help to know which way the redcoats would march. Would they go by the land route over the Boston Neck? Or would they take the shorter route—by boat across
the water to Charlestown and then on foot from there? . . . Paul Revere sent someone to spy on the British. ‘Find out which way the redcoats will march,' the spy was told. ‘Then climb into the high bell tower of the North Church and send a signal. Light one lantern if they go by land. Hang two lanterns if they go by sea.' Revere got in a boat and quietly rowed out into the Charles River. A horse was ready for him on the Charlestown shore. He waited—silently.” At this point, Hakim shifts to Longfellow himself: “And lo! As he looks, on the belfry's height / A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! / He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, / But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight / A second lamp in the belfry burns!” Hakim then continues: “Now he knew! The redcoats would take the water route across the Charles River, just as Paul Revere was doing.”

29
.
  
Michael J. Berson, ed.,
United States History: Beginnings
(Orlando: Harcourt, 2003), 291.

30
.
  
Jesus Garcia et al.,
Creating America: A History of the United States, Beginnings through Reconstruction
(Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2002), 156–157.

31
.
  
Three is the upper limit, never a hint of any more. “Three men rode and gave warning of a British attack. One man was William Dawes. Who were the other two?” asks an online quiz. The choices: Dr. Samuel Prescott, Major John Pitcairn, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere. (
Softschools.com
:
http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/social_studies/revolutionary_war/quiz414.html
)

32
.
  
Thirteen texts displayed at the 2002 annual conference of the National Council for Social Studies in Phoenix, Arizona, all told the story. These included six elementary and middle-school texts: Sterling Stuckey and Linda Kerrigan Salvucci,
Call to Freedom
(Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2003); Joyce Appleby et al.,
The American Republic to 1877
(New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2003); Berson,
United States History: Beginnings
; James West Davidson,
The American Nation: Beginnings through 1877
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003); Garcia,
Creating America: A History of the United States
; and Hakim,
A History of US.
The seven secondary-school texts are: Joyce Appleby et al.,
The American Vision
(New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2003); Gerald A. Danzer et al.,
The Americans
(Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2003); Daniel J. Boorstin and Brooks Mather Kelley,
A History of the United States
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002); David Goodfield et al.,
The American Journey: A History of the United States
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001); John Mack Faragher et al.,
Out of Many: A History of the American People
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003); Robert A. Divine et al.,
America: Past and Present
(New York: Longman, 2003); and Paul Boyer,
American Nation
(Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2003). Newer editions incorporating versions of the Revere story include Emma J. Lapsansky-Werner, Peter B. Levy, Randy Roberts, Alan Taylor,
United States History
, Survey Edition (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2013); James West Davidson and Michael B. Stoff,
America: History of Our Nation
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2014); Joyce Appleby, Alan Brinkley, Albert S. Broussard, James M. McPherson, and Donald A. Ritchie,
The American Journey
(Columbus, OH: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2012); Michael J. Berson, Tyrone C. Howard, and Cinthia Salinas,
Harcourt Social Studies—United States: Making a New Nation
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
2012); William Deverell and Deborah Gray White,
Holt McDougal United States History: Beginnings to 1877
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012); Gerald A. Danzer, J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Larry S. Krieger, Louis E. Wilson, and Nancy Woloch,
The Americans
(Geneva, IL: Holt McDougal, 2012).