Guest Post: Professional Motherhood: A New Interpretation of Women in the Early Republic

January 21, 2020 By The Junto Moderator in Guest Posts, women's history Tags: education, Gender, New England, New York history, reform, women 6 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from C.C. Borzilleri, who is a 2019 graduate of Georgetown University with a BA in History and Government. A lifelong resident of Litchfield, CT, she wrote her senior thesis on the history of women educated in her hometown. She is now working at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, a privately funded presidential library with offices in Vermont and Washington, DC.<

With this year marking the 40th anniversary of Linda Kerber’s Women of the Republic, popularizing Republican Motherhood as an understanding of women in the Early Republic, I propose a supplementary theory to understand women in this time. Kerber’s Republican Motherhood articulated the accepted role of women: the “steady infusion of virtue into the Republic” by raising children to be responsible citizens.[1] This mindset justified the education of women because they were responsible for the early inspiration of their children to care for the new nation. Kerber emphasized the division of public and private space, with the corresponding distinction of the public for men and the private for women. But her theory does not paint the full picture of activities women carried out. Continue reading →

“UNITE OR DIE”: John Holt’s New-York Journal; or, the General Advertiser and the Imagery of Allegiance

January 21, 2016 By Christopher F. Minty in From the Archives, Methodology, Research Tags: Ben Franklin, historiography, james rivington, John Holt, Join or Die, Loyalists, mastheads, New York history, newspapers, patriots, Print Culture 9 Comments

Colonial Williamsburg—reconstruction of Holt’s storehouse, sometimes referred to as John Holt’s “new store.”

A short while ago, I wrote on the importance of political caricatures within eighteenth-century British America. I called for an increased focus on how caricatures affected, and in some cases represented, politics during the American Revolution. In today’s post, I’d like to do something similar—I’d like to call for an increased focus on newspaper mastheads. An increased exploration on what they meant, and how they were used for political mobilization. Continue reading →

The Importance of Partisanship in New York City, ca. 1769–1775

June 5, 2015 By Christopher F. Minty in From the Archives, Research Tags: Alexander McDougall, American Revolution, historiography, John Wilkes, Liberty Boys, Loyalists, Middle Colonies, New York City, New York history, Partisanship, patriots, Politics, Print Culture, Republicanism, Sons of Liberty, voluntary associations 6 Comments

On April 25, 1775, hundreds of New Yorkers acknowledged receiving “a Good firelock, Bayonet, Cartouch Box, and Belt.” Six days after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and three days after Israel (Isaac) Bissell told New Yorkers the news, Alexander McDougall mobilized support against the British. The War of American Independence had reached New York and, with hundreds of supporters, McDougall was ready to fight.[1] By April 1775, McDougall was a revered figure across colonial America, widely known as “the Wilkes of New York.” He was an individual who, like John Wilkes, was perceived as willing to fight for the liberties of the press, the people’s welfare, and against arbitrary rule.[2] McDougall’s popularity, by 1775, had been five years in the making. But, in 2015, historians are yet to fully appreciate the role he played in the coming of the Revolution. In this post, I want to reemphasize his influence in affecting New Yorkers’ allegiances. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Fear in the Revolutionary Americas” Conference Recap

November 18, 2014 By Sara Georgini in Conferences, Guest Posts Tags: American Revolution, Atlantic World, British Empire, conferences, historiography, Jamaica, Native Americans, New York history, race, Slavery, South Carolina, Virginia 4 Comments

Elizabeth M. Covart is an early American historian, writer, and podcaster. Presently she is working on her first book manuscript about cultural community creation in Albany, New York, 1614-1830. Liz also writes a practical blog about history and how to make it more accessible at Uncommonplacebook.com and her new podcast, “Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History,” seeks to bring the work of academic and public historians to history lovers everywhere.

October 31, 2014. On the most fearsome day of the year, Tufts University convened “Fear in the Revolutionary Americas, 1776-1865,” a one-day conference designed to explore the question: What role did fear play in the revolutions that occurred in North and South America between 1776 and 1865? Continue reading →

Empire/State

November 4, 2014 By Sara Georgini in Roundtables, Special Features, The Legacy of Alfred F. Young Tags: Alfred F. Young, Democratic, Democratic-Republicans, election, Jefferson, New York history, New York State, Republican 1 Comment

In 1967, Alfred F. Young transformed his Northwestern doctoral dissertation into a dense saga of New York’s Revolutionary power players and their roiling class wars, entitled The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763-1797 (Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, Va., by the University of North Carolina Press). Young’s work, in many ways, spoke both to the colonial past that he studied and to the America of President Lyndon Johnson, a nation beset by party strife over civil rights, the Vietnam War, and a range of social issues. And, tucked away near the volume’s end, Young shared a few bright-lines of inquiry for any student of political history—no matter that his focus here is firmly fixed on New York State. “I have been interested in politics as it is organized by the leaders,” Young writes, “how it appears up front to the voters, how it all turns out in the elections, and what the elected do with political power” (596). Continue reading →