Review: The American Revolution Reborn

March 6, 2017 By Christopher F. Minty in Book Review, Conferences Tags: #RevReborn, American history, American Revolution, Civil War, historiography, History, revisionism, was the American revolution a civil war Leave a comment

The American Revolution Reborn, ed. Patrick Spero and Michael Zuckerman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).

Between May 30 and June 1, 2013, hundreds of historians, teachers, and students came together in Philadelphia to discuss twenty-first-century perspectives on the American Revolution at a landmark conference, “The American Revolution Reborn.” That conference, which received and receives regular shout-outs here at The Junto, forms the basis for The American Revolution Reborn, an edited collection of essays designed to “upset the patterns of history inquiry that have defined scholarship for the past generation” (3). Much like The Oxford Handbook on the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), The American Revolution Reborn seeks to regenerate interest in the Revolution with “new perspectives” that, the editors and contributors hope, “will produce new interpretations of the past that move our understanding forward in new directions” (5). Continue reading →

Roundtable: Ambassador in a Hat: The Sartorial Power of Benjamin Franklin’s Fur Cap

February 15, 2017 By Sara Georgini in Colonial Couture, Roundtables Tags: 18th Century, American Revolution, Art, art history, Benjamin Franklin, clothing, Diplomacy, diplomatic history, Early America, France, fur, History, History of Fashion 15 Comments

This Colonial Couture post is by guest contributor Joanna M. Gohmann, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in 18th– and 19th-Century Art, at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Benjamin Franklin (Augustin de Saint Aubin after Charles Nicholas Cochin, 1777, private collection)

While acting as the American ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin wore a fur hat to express his American status. The French enthusiastically accepted Franklin’s use of the topper, seeing it as an embodiment of the ambassador and a symbol of America and the American cause. When he first came to France in 1767, Franklin wore the clothes of a polite, fashionable Frenchman—a fine European suit and powdered wig—as a way to show respect to the French court. When he returned in 1776, he abandoned all the decorum of French dress and instead wore a simple, homespun brown suit, spectacles, and a large fur hat. He cleverly adopted this style as a way to garner attention and appeal to the French for support of the American cause.[1]

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J. K. Rowling, History, and Revisionism

December 1, 2016 By Rachel Herrmann in Opinion Tags: Albus Dumbledore, Cursed Child, Cuthbert Binns, Dolores Umbridge, Fake news, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, History, Horace Slughorn, J. K. Rowling, Muggles, pedagogy, Propaganda, Rita Skeeter, Wizards 5 Comments

Source: allnightavenue on Flickr

I feel like I’m writing more than a few pieces lately that start with “I love [X], BUT . . .” and apparently today is no different. I’ll just come out and say it: I love Harry Potter, but I have trouble with J. K. Rowling’s treatment of history. Harry Potter was immensely important to my young adulthood. I read the books as a teenager, went to more than one midnight movie release, bought and consumed Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Bean, and dressed as a character from the books for Halloween.[1] I tend to re-read the novels once a year, when I’m looking for ways to improve my ability to tell a story. I wasn’t a historian when I first started reading the books, so I didn’t look too critically at Rowling’s characterizations of history and historians. Now that I am a historian, I’ve come to the conclusion that although Rowling’s portrayal of our discipline is wrong, her depiction of the wizarding world’s past—and how people interpret and at times attempt to change and revise it—is much more in keeping with the task that muggle historians daily confront. Continue reading →

Men of La Mancha

September 29, 2016 By Sara Georgini in Commentary, From the Archives, Uncategorized Tags: 18th Century, 19th Century, Adams, American Revolution, Atlantic, Atlantic History, Atlantic World, Benjamin Franklin, Civil War, Early Republic, History, iterature, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, literature, New England, Print Culture, vastearlyamerica, Washington 2 Comments

don-quixote-book-cover In a certain village of vast early America, whose name I do not recall, a book fell open. Then another. And another. By 1860, many generations’ worth of American readers had imbibed the two-volume work of Spain’s early modern master, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: Don Quixote, or, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha (1605). Cervantes’ metafiction of a mad knight-errant, often hailed as the first Western novel, bustled and blistered with originality. Continue reading →

Interview with Carolle R. Morini, Boston Athenæum

September 27, 2016 By Christopher F. Minty in Interview, Public History Tags: Boston Athenaeum, Boston Public Library, Carolle Morini, Charles Francis Adams, History, librarians, library, Massachusetts Historical Society, William Smith Shaw Leave a comment

Today’s post is an interview with Carolle R. Morini, Caroline D. Bain Archivist, Reference Librarian, at the Boston Athenæum. Carolle holds a BFA in Photography from the Montserrat College of Art and an MA in History and an MLS in Archives Management from Simmons College.

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Non-Americans Researching Early America in North America

May 19, 2016 By Christopher F. Minty in Academia, Archives around the Atlantic, Roundtables, Special Features Tags: academia, Ann Arbor, Archival work, Archives, History, How to research, Loyalists, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, museums, New England, New York City, research, Researching in America, Researching in Canada, Scholarly community, University of New Brunswick, Where to stay in America when researching 12 Comments

This week, several Juntoists have offered useful guides for archival work in Spain, France, and England. Today, we are offering something slightly different—a guide to researching in North America! After all, not all early Americanists are American, and planning transatlantic trips can be daunting. Continue reading →

History & Story

September 23, 2015 By Sara Georgini in Narrative History, Roundtables, Special Features Tags: Adams, biography, Catholic, Early America, education, France, Gallatin, Gender, Henry Adams, History, Jefferson, Madison, medieval, narrative, Narrative History, Protestant, religion 4 Comments

Once or twice upon a chapter, as you work to tell history as story, take comfort in knowing that even American sage Henry Adams sometimes had a not-great writing day. By 1878, the 40-year-old Harvard professor of medieval history was a polished scholar. Hailing from a family that wrote for the archive, he navigated easily the uncatalogued byways of an early Library of Congress. He swept up obscure state records and gathered local maps for his 9-volume History of the United States. As editor of the North American Review, Henry instructed freelancers to write “in bald style.” He sliced his private letters down to acid cultural commentary that, to the modern reader, feels meta-enough to border on code. Continue reading →

Guest Post: A Series of Fortunate Events: Navigating the Eighteenth-Century World with George Galphin

September 4, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Guest Posts, Research Tags: British Empire, colonial America, connections, Creeks, David Library of the American Revolution, Eighteenth Century, Eighteenth-century history, Escotchaby, George Galphin, Georgia, historiography, History, Indians in the American Revolution, Ireland, Metawney, Native Americans, Recent scholarship, Sempoyaffee, Sir William Johnson, sociability, social networks, southern history, violence 16 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Bryan Rindfleisch, Assistant Professor of History at Marquette University. Bryan received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, in 2014, where he specialized in early American, Native American, and Atlantic world history. His book manuscript focuses on the intersections of colonial, Native, imperial, and Atlantic histories, peoples, and places in eighteenth-century North America.

It’s inevitable. At some point, a friendly conversation about my research—with family and friends, colleagues, students, or even a random stranger at the local coffee shop—will take an unfortunate turn. All it takes is that one question: “Who is George Galphin?” Continue reading →

Historians Attend Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical

August 7, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Commentary, Opinion, Public History Tags: Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Angelica Schuyler, Anthony Ramos, Bill of Rights, Christopher Jackson, Daveed Diggs, Eliza Hamilton, Eliza Schuyler, Founding Fathers, George Washington, Great White Way, Groffsauce, Hamilton: An American Musical, Hercules Mulligan, History, How do you get tickets for Hamilton?, How to get tickets for Hamilton, James Madison, Jasmine Cephas Jones, John Laurens, Jonathan Groff, King George III, Leslie Odom Jr., Lin-Manuel Miranda, Maria Reynolds, Marquis de Lafayette, Musicals, New York Times, Okieriete Onaodowan, Peggy Schuyler, Philip Hamilton, Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Richard Rodgers Theater, Showbiz, The Public Theater, Thomas Jefferson 13 Comments

This post was written by Christopher Minty and Nora Slonimsky, who, many moons ago, woke up early on a Sunday morning to purchase tickets to the opening-night preview performance of Hamilton: An American Musical, which took place on July 13, 2015, at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York City. This post was originally posted on July 19, 2015. It was removed as a courtesy to the show’s creative and promotional teams. It has been reposted with significant alterations and additions.

hamilton_FB Hip-hop is on Broadway, not just in a popular YouTube video. On Monday, July 13, 2015, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit off-Broadway musical, HAMILTON, made its debut on the big stage. On August 6, 2015, rebranded as Hamilton: An American Musical, a much-applauded, diverse cast returned to perform in the official opening of a much larger, hopefully long-running production at the Richard Rodgers Theater.

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Review: Jessica Choppin Roney, Governed by a Spirit of Opposition

June 25, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in Book Review, Review / Q&A Tags: academia, American history, American Philosophical Society, American Revolution, book review, Carl Becker, Eric Foner, History, Jessica Roney, Johns Hopkins, Mobilization, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, political culture, Political history, Politics, Richard Ryerson, The Junto, voluntary associations 2 Comments

Jessica Choppin Roney, Governed by a Spirit of Opposition: The Origins of American Political Practice in Colonial Philadelphia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).

Capture In recent years, early American political history has received considerable attention. A range of historians have enriched our understanding of how Americans participated in and contributed to politics in the early republic.[1] Popular politics during the colonial period has received less attention.[2] But in Governed by a Spirit of Opposition, part of Studies in Early American Economy and Society from the Library Company of Philadelphia, Jessica Choppin Roney focuses on politics in Philadelphia prior to the American Revolution. In so doing, she makes an important contribution to the field of early American history. Continue reading →