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The Milwaukee Journal - Jul 4, 1926
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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION CONSIDERED AS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT https://archive.org/details/americanrevoluti017869mbp
BY J. FRANKLIN JAMESON
DIRECTOR. OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH
IN THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OT WASHINGTON
Princeton University Press
1926
LONDON; HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
"In this year 1925 we enter upon a long series of celebrations commemorating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversaries of the successive events of the American Revolution.
If any of those present are able like myself, to remember well the long series of centennial commemorations of those same events, that marked the years from 1875 to 1883, and even to 1889, they will, I think, agree with me that those celebrations did more than anything else that has happened in our life-time to stimulate popular interest in American history in general, and specifically in the history of the American Revolution.
The Magazine of American History was founded at once, in 1876. The Daughters of the American Revolution, a more numerous body than ever before, were united in the commemoration of any portion of history, and the two societies of Sons, date from that period. A still wider, though indirect, indication of popular historic interest may be seen in the passion for what is called "colonial 55 furniture, a passion which distinctly flowed from these commemorations and especially from the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, for it is certain that down to that year the sway of black walnut and funereal horsehair was steadily maintained. A less popular but more fruitful blossoming of interest in history may be seen in the striking rapidity with which, in the 'eighties immediately succeeding, professorships of history were established in the American colleges and universities, and in the sudden zeal with which numbers of able young students devoted themselves to the study of their country's history.
The consequences which flowed from the celebrations of fifty years ago are so far certain to repeat themselves in our time, that we may at least be sure of a speedy heightening of interest in the history of the American Revolution The main desire that has underlain the preparation of the ensuing lectures has been the wish that whatever results, whether in earned academic research or in popular thinking, may spring from this new period of commemorations,may be marked by a wider view of the events than was taken fifty years ago.
Surely It ought to be so, in view of the advances which history has made In America in fifty years, from a time when there were probably not a dozen professional students of history In the United States to a time when there are at least several hundreds.
Another advance that we ought to make consists in a revision of the popular estimate of the men of Revolutionary times. Fifty years ago, and even a hundred years ago, there had become fixed in the public mind the notion that, because in the period of the Revolution there were many heroic characters and deeds, the whole American population of that time was heroic. It Is pleasant to think well of a whole generation of those who have preceded us, and especially pleasant to glorify them if they were our ancestors. It may seem harmless, but when it Is done In terms of comparison with later generations It is not altogether wholesome. It is not wholesome because it is not just. Nothing can be more certain than that. If we consider the whole nation and not merely the Individual instances of heroic character acter and conduct, the patriotism of 1861 , on both sides, was much more widely extended and more ardent than the much-lauded patriotism of 1776, and that of 1918 more pervasive, more enlightened, and more pure than either. How could we expect it to be otherwise, when we consider carefully the circumstances of the time? Let us distinguish between the heroes who fought and suffered and made every sacrifice to bring Into existence a new nation, and the population at large, of whom so great a proportion were, as a matter of fact, however we may excuse them, provincial-minded, dubious in opinion, reluctant to make any sacrifices, half-hearted in the glorious cause. All honor to the heroes, and they were many.
We sit here in the Promised Land,
That flows with Freedom's honey and milk;
But 'twas they won it, sword in hand,
Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.
But let us not forget that a large part of their heroism had to be expended in overcoming difficulties which need not have existed but for the slackness and indifference of their fellows. For instance, no episode of the history of the Revolution affords a finer example of patriotic sacrifice than the winter's encampment at Valley Forge ; but why were the sufferings at Valley Forge encountered? Simply because the country at large, with whatever excuses, did not support the war, and the army which was waging it, with any approach to the ardor which was shown in 1861, on both sides, or in 1918. Clothes and shoes and blankets and tents were lacking. Who does not know what would happen if an American army of the present day were found to be destitute even of chocolate drops? It would not be three days before the metropolitan dallies would be voicing loudly a nation's wrath, and car-loads of chocolate drops would be rushed promptly to every camp. Let us be fair to the moderns, and not fabricate an imaginary golden age in the undeveloped America of 1776." pp. 3-6
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