Review: Craig Bruce Smith, American Honor

May 18, 2018 By Mark Boonshoft in Book Review, Recent Scholarship, Uncategorized Tags: academic publishing, American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, book review, Founders, Honor, military history, Political history 1 Comment

Craig Bruce Smith, American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

9781469638836 In American Honor, Craig Bruce Smith places morals, virtue, and ethics at the center of the American Revolution. Smith argues that in the late-colonial period, understandings of honor transformed. Instead of something hereditable, honor became based on merit. That “ethical transformation” helped bring about the Revolution. Independence then allowed Americans to realize its potential. In a phrase, you might say the American Revolution was “made on honor, sold on merit.”[1] Continue reading →

Q&A: Craig Bruce Smith, author of American Honor

May 3, 2018 By Benjamin Park in Book Review, Historiography Tags: 18th Century, American Honor, American Revolution, Craig Bruce Smith, Founders, Founding Fathers, Honor, intellectual history 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2018-05-02 at 9.58.33 PM We are pleased to host a Q&A with Craig Bruce Smith, author of the recently released American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals During the Revolutionary Era (UNC Press). Dr. Smith received his PhD from Brandeis and is an assistant professor of history at William Woods University. We will be featuring a review of the book in the coming weeks. Continue reading →

Identity and the Founders: A Response to Mark Lilla

November 21, 2016 By Jonathan Wilson in Commentary, Opinion Tags: Founders, identity politics, liberalism, National Identity, Nationalism, Republicanism 10 Comments

This weekend, Mark Lilla, a historian of ideas at Columbia University, published a New York Times op-ed on “identity liberalism.” Reacting to the outcome of the presidential election, Lilla argues that contemporary American liberalism’s celebration of diversity, however morally salutary in private life, has been politically suicidal at the national level. “National politics in healthy periods is not about ‘difference,'” Lilla writes; “it is about commonality. And it will be dominated by whoever best captures Americans’ imaginations about our shared destiny.”

Lilla’s argument is a response—one of several possible responses—to what I see as a real problem. In contemporary America, demands for inclusion, equality, and dignity often seem to be made in the name of particular groups rather than in the name of the common good. Whether this perception is accurate is another matter. I won’t address that complicated question here. But Lilla’s perspective on early American history warrants a critical response.

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13 Revolutions +1

June 22, 2016 By Sara Georgini in Digital History, Interview, Public History Tags: 13 colonies, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, 21st century, academia, Adams, African-American history, American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, Archives, Atlantic History, Constitution, cultural history, Data, DH, Digital History, digital humanities, digital technology, Early Republic, Founders, Franklin, Gender, Independence, Jefferson, law, museums, pedagogy, Popular History, Print Culture, Public History, Publishing, race, religion, research, science and technology, Slavery, Smithsonian Institution, teaching, Technology, UX, Washington Leave a comment

Diego Rivera and Bertram D. Wolfe, “Portrait of America,” 1934

When John Adams looked back on the American Revolution (something he liked to do), he reflected that, “The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People.” The colonists’ drive to independence marked a new era of American history, Adams thought, when “Thirteen Clocks were made to Strike together; a perfection of Mechanism which no Artist had ever before effected.” Scholars have struggled to frame the experience of the Revolution in picture and on the page. How can we use digital tools to curate collections of revolutionary culture and #vastearlyamerica for use in the classroom?

Today, The Junto chats with Darren Milligan, Senior Digital Strategist at the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access, about the Smithsonian Learning Lab, which encourages us to make, use, and share new galleries of history. Continue reading →

A Toast to John Adams

October 30, 2015 By Sara Georgini in From the Archives, Research, Uncategorized Tags: Adams, alcohol, American Revolution, Amsterdam, Antebellum, birthday, Bordeaux, Braintree, California, claret, coffee, colonial, Diplomacy, diplomatic history, Dutch, family history, food, Founders, France, Jefferson, John Adams, Livingston, Madeira, Massachusetts, New England, Pennsylvania, red, South, Tea, tobacco, Virginia, Weymouth, white, wine 1 Comment

Happy 280th birthday to President John Adams: lawyer, statesman, and…wine connoisseur? He began a crisp New England morning like today with a tankard of hard cider, but Adams’ years in Europe primed his palate for fine French wine. Continue reading →

Autumn Reads

August 19, 2015 By Sara Georgini in Lists, Recent Scholarship Tags: 19th Century, Adams, Africa, American Indians, American Revolution, Amistad, Antebellum South, Archives, Atlantic World, braddock, Caribbean, Charleston, Civil War, Confederacy, cultural history, Democracy, Diplomacy, diplomatic history, Early Republic, Founders, French Atlantic, Gender, George Washington, historiography, History of Medicine, Jefferson, John Adams, legal history, London, Methodology, museums, Nat Turner, Native Americans, New England, New York, Pirates, Politics, Print Culture, prisoners, Publishing, Quaker, Quakers, religion, religious history, renaissance, Romanticism, Slavery, southern history, Spanish Empire, theatre, Thomas Jefferson, university press, Virginia, visual culture, War of 1812, Washington Leave a comment

“Valley of the Catawissa in Autumn,” Thomas Moran (ca. 1862)

Fall brings new early American titles to explore. Enjoy our Spring Reads 2015 list, too, and share your finds below!

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Spring Reads

April 9, 2015 By Sara Georgini in Lists, Recent Scholarship Tags: 19th Century, Abraham Lincoln, Adams, American Revolution, Amistad, Anglo-Dutch, Antebellum South, Archives, Atlantic World, Civil War, Confederacy, cultural history, Early Republic, Founders, French Atlantic, Gender, George Washington, historiography, John Adams, Methodology, museums, Native Americans, New England, New York, photog, Politics, Print Culture, Publishing, Quakers, religion, Romanticism, Slavery, southern history, Spanish Empire, St.Louis, Thomas Jefferson, university press, Virginia, visual culture 5 Comments

Spring_panel_from_the_Four_Seasons_leaded-glass_window_by_Louis_Comfort_Tiffany Here’s our seasonal roundup of new and forthcoming titles. Share your finds below! Continue reading →

Guest Post: Bastard out of Nevis: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton”

February 25, 2015 By The Junto Moderator in Commentary, Film, Guest Posts Tags: Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, drama, Founders, Guest Posts, Hamilton: An American Musical, James Madison, John Adams, Lin-Manuel Miranda, race, theatre, Thomas Jefferson 4 Comments

We are pleased to feature a guest post from Benjamin Carp (@bencarp), the Daniel M. Lyons Professor of American History at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Carp is the author of both Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America and Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution.

“I want the historians to respect this.” –Lin-Manuel Miranda, according to Ron Chernow

Alexander Hamilton, by John Trumbull (after painting by Giuseppe Ceracchi, 1801); National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Gift of Henry Cabot Lodge

In the lobby of the Public Theater, two statues flanked the doorway—the likenesses of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr stretched out their arms and aimed their dueling pistols at one another, and it was hard not to feel as if I was standing in the middle. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants, wrote the musical Hamilton and stars in the title role. He portrays the first Secretary of the Treasury as a “bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman” and an immigrant striver made good; throughout his career, Hamilton is arrogant about his talents but perpetually insecure about his place. As told by Miranda, Hamilton is both self-made and self-unmade, wry and seductive and yet constantly raging against anyone who might hold him back. Continue reading →

The JuntoCast, Episode 15: “Founders” in Early America

February 4, 2015 By Michael D. Hattem in The Junto Podcast Network, The JuntoCast: A Podcast on Early American History Tags: Abigail Adams, American Revolution, cultural memory, Founders, George Wythe, Patrick Henry, Phyllis Wheatley, podcast, The JuntoCast, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas McKean, William Livingston Leave a comment

We’re happy to bring you the fifteenth episode of “The JuntoCast.” Continue reading →

Guest Post: Diplomacy, Slavery, Quids, and Much More in the Latest Volume of the Papers of James Monroe

October 7, 2014 By Michael D. Hattem in Book Review Tags: documentary editing, Founders, James Monroe, scholarly editing 1 Comment

Cassandra Good is the Associate Editor of The Papers of James Monroe. She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her first book Founding Friendships: Friendships between Men and Women in the Early American Republic is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in January 2015.

From the Louisiana Purchase to reflections on travels in Spain to debates on slavery, the latest volume of The Papers of James Monroe will be a great resource for scholars of the early republic. Whether or not you have ever read anything by or about Monroe, it’s likely that there will be documents of interest in this volume. It spans from 1803, when Monroe was sent to France to help negotiate for Louisiana, to April 1811, just before he became secretary of state. Continue reading →