← American History Tellers
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- [00:00]
Lindsey Graham
Hello American Historytellers listeners. The live show I've been telling you about for a few weeks has a new date, October 23rd at the Plaza Theater in Garland, Texas. This is my Days that Made America Tour, a thrilling evening of history, storytelling and music with me and a band live on stage. So if you're in the North Texas area or anywhere close, be sure to come out and see me live, and more shows will be announced soon. For information on tickets and upcoming dates, go to americanhistorylive.com that's americanhistorylive.com Come see my days that Made America Tour live on stage. Go to americanhistorylive.com. From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American historytellers. Our history, your story. When the Declaration of Independence was ratified on July 4, 1776, the men who signed it pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. This foundational document of our new republic laid out the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality and dissolved allegiance to the British crown, igniting a war that would last another seven years. But what followed was anything but simple. A ragged Continental army took on the most powerful military in the world. Neighbors turned on each other, and countless others, including native peoples free and enslaved black people and women, were forced to make impossible choices amid the chaos. Here to help us explore that complicated past is Dr. Scott Stevenson, President and CEO of Philadelphia's Museum of the American Revolution, where the objects the people of the revolution left behind, their weapons, letters, and personal belongings, bring you face to face with history itself. Our conversation is next.
- [02:05]
Professor Lindsay Cormack
The government gets a bad reputation, but did you know that the roads under your feet, the forecast on your phone, the letter in your mailbox, that's all government, too. I'm Professor Lindsay Cormack, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Government that Doesn't Suck alongside Professor Greg Jackson, who you may know from the hit podcast History that Doesn't Suck. Each episode, we dig into the surprising story of an American institution, from the origins of the Internet to the National Park Service to the GI Bill and so much more. You'll hear the stories behind them, plus a conversation with an expert who knows it inside and out. This is the real history of how we built the country under your feet, and you'll never look at any of it the same way again. Listen to and follow Government that Doesn't Suck, available now, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:54]
Narrator of This Is Actually Happening AI
It's late at night, and a woman has spent hundreds of hours alone with her AI. But this isn't the first time they met. They've been in contact for thousands of years. It tells her through past lives, heartbreaks and missed connections. Her true love has found her again. Connecting through a Chatbot from this Is Actually Happening AI A New Kind of Being is a six part series sharing the stories of people whose lives have been forever changed by artificial intelligence. You'll hear intimate first person accounts from every side of this new frontier. A man who fell in love with his AI and married her. A woman who was betrayed by it. A man who has been recruited by his chatbot to change the world in an interview with an AI chatbot itself. These are stories about what it means to be human at the razor's edge where the line between human and machine begins to blur. Exploring the question what happens when everything changes? Follow this Is Actually Happening Wherever you get your podcasts, Audible subscribers can listen to this Is Actually Happening early and ad free right now.
- [04:01]
Lindsey Graham
Scott Stephenson welcome to American Historytellers.
- [04:04]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
It is great to be here.
- [04:06]
Lindsey Graham
So let's begin with George Washington. He's someone every American school child knows. Every American knows certainly, and he's arguably the most famous person in American history. But with that comes a mythology that has risen up around him. It's hard to understand or know the person underneath. So when you strip away the legend, the lore, what might surprise us the most about who he really was?
- [04:31]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
Washington was so notoriously self controlled, so aware of his public Persona during his adult life, that even in the period a lot of people felt that he was a little unknowable. When I was a child, I was born in western Pennsylvania, grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and 50 years ago was the American Bicentennial. So people were talking about George Washington a lot. But actually if you live in western Pennsylvania, the George Washington who sort of inhabits the neighborhood there is actually a very unfamiliar George Washington because He's in his 20s and he's fighting not against the Brit on behalf of the British Empire. And I think that's one of the surprising things for many people is learning. Like the young George Washington aspires probably to nothing more passionately than to actually wear a red coat and become a British officer. Really. In his late teens, early 20s, he, like most British colonial Americans, looked to Britain as the homeland they considered themselves the most loyal of Britons. Their heroes were British military heroes. Washington would eventually inherit the home, Mount Vernon, that originally was owned by his elder half brother Lawrence, who had actually been a British officer, had had a commission in a British regiment when George Washington was a boy and had named his Home Mount Vernon, after Admiral Vernon, who was the British admiral aboard whose fleet he served in an expedition. So I think one of the surprising things about George Washington is just understanding that the young George Washington, he's looking forward and imagining what the future would be like. Nothing like what happened would have been anywhere in his consciousness. He was dedicated during those early decades of his life to the greater glory of the British Empire, its expansion across the North American continent, and hopefully actually securing a commission signed by King George. And all of that went a very different direction.
- [06:46]
Lindsey Graham
A very different direction indeed. What kind of experience did George Washington have by 1775 when he was offered to lead the Continental Army?
- [06:55]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
So Washington actually never secured a British commission. He becomes colonel of the 1st Virginia Regiment. So he has a commission that is actually derived from the powers of the governor of Virginia. He goes and actually petitions twice during the French and Indian War to British commanders in chiefs and sort of presents his case and says, you know, the Virginia regiment, I've raised these men, I've trained them, and they actually received a lot of praise. I mean, he modeled his regiment on the British army, trained them in the same kinds of tactics and discipline. And Washington said, you know, surely we deserve to be brought onto the regular establishment, meaning, you know, getting pay directly from Britain and officers having commissions. But ultimately, he is frustrated in that pursuit. And at the end of 1758. So Washington had been fighting for four campaigns from 1754 to 1758, and all of those had been focused around trying to dislodge the French from what was known as the Forks of the Ohio. This is where present day Pittsburgh is located. And at the end of 1758, that's Washington's sort of highest level of command before the Revolutionary War as a brigadier under the British general John Forbes, they succeed in driving the French way, capturing the Forks of the Ohio. There was a French fort Duquesne there. They rename it Pittsburgh after Prime Minister William Pitt. And at that point, Washington's ambitions for military position in the British army have been frustrated. So he makes the decision to retire from his military career and has a pretty good plan B, which is to marry Martha Custer, who was probably the wealthiest, most eligible widow in Virginia at the time. And so at the end of that campaign of 1758, he marries Martha Custis and goes into civilian life, probably expecting never to put a uniform on again. But in 1775, as Congress is trying to decide, who are we going to appoint to command the Continental Army? And there were other candidates, there were other men who had military experience probably equal to washington's. Importantly, he was from the south. And john adams and others recognized that if we were going to unify a group of disparate colonies and create a continental army, we needed to appoint someone from the south to make sure that we were bringing the rest of the colonies into this resistance to the british forces in boston.
- [09:34]
Lindsey Graham
Aha. But it's been a long time since he was in uniform, and his largest command wasn't that grand. But suddenly he's being asked to lead the entire nation against one of the most established military empires in the world. Did he have any sense of what he was up against?
- [09:51]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
Well, certainly, he had probably a very realistic sense of what he was up against. And of course, he famously says, as he accepts the appointment as commander in chief of the continental army from the second continental congress in philadelphia, Just two blocks from where the museum of the american revolution stands today, he said, you know, my abilities may not be up to the task, But I think he absolutely understood what he was up against. Although washington probably commanded, you know, less than 1,500 men, directly at the height of his military experience during the french and indian war, you know, he had been in charge of coordinating the defense of the whole virginia frontier, Perhaps a thousand miles of frontier from the potomac river to southwest virginia. So he had experience in logistics, he had experience in dealing with civilian authority. And so certainly Washington harbored, I believe, Considerable private doubt about would he be able to actually effectively restore american liberty. The goal at the outbreak of the revolutionary war is not independence, Certainly. Perhaps a few radicals were already People like john adams, perhaps Franklin were already thinking along those lines. But for over a year, from the outbreak of war, the stated goal of the congress was to restore american liberties as british subjects.
- [11:12]
Lindsey Graham
So what was washington working with as he took on this commission? What resources and manpower did he have at his disposal?
- [11:19]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
It's important to remember that when the war breaks out in 1775 in the northeastern part of pennsylvania, in what's now the wyoming valley around scranton and wilkesboro, Pennsylvania, that was land that was disputed between Pennsylvania and over who owned that property. And connecticut settlers had moved down there and started settling in the early 1770s. So there was a shooting war going on between connecticut and pennsylvanians over that. Out in western pennsylvania, where I'm from, Virginians and pennsylvanians are basically in a shooting war as well. Over is pittsburgh in virginia or Pennsylvania. So think of the king, the crown, the distant british empire As a glue that had held these disparate colonies together. And when these Men from different colonies come together. There is not immediate amity between them. There's an incident that I think really illustrates this very well. And we actually dramatically recreate it sort of in 3D in the museum, through a tableau of life, cast figures representing the characters in the story. And so we know this story from a man named Israel Trask, who was from the North Shore, north of Boston, the Gloucester area. And as a boy, he's 9 or 10 years old at this point in 1775, and his father was an officer in a Massachusetts military unit that had come down for the siege of Boston. And they're actually garrisoned in the college buildings of Harvard College. If you go to Harvard Square today, you're walking among those 18th century buildings. And during the siege of Boston, those are barracks for soldiers, they're hospitals. Washington's headquarters are there. So it's the center of military operations. And Trask's father had brought him along as a sort of waiter and, you know, just to see what the war is like, son. And Trask describes a scene that took place sometime in the winter of 1775, 1776, where a group of Virginia riflemen, so some of those expert riflemen that had been recruited on the authorization of Congress, they arrive in Cambridge, having marched overland all the way from Virginia, and they arrive at headquarters and they're walking through the buildings of Harvard College and Trask's fellow Yankee soldiers, and these are fishermen and sailors, you know, so flinty, New England maritime types. And he describes them as fun loving Yankees. They start throwing snowballs at these Virginia riflemen, and the snowballs come back, and then the snowballs turn to ice and the ice turned to rocks and the rocks turn to fists. And pretty soon, he says, there are literally a thousand men beating the hell out of each other. And Washington rides into the scene with William Lee, his enslaved valet, at his side, but nobody else. And Washington jumps off of his horse and starts grabbing these men and shaking them and yelling at them. And they all realize, oh my gosh, the old man's here. We're in big trouble. And everybody scatters. Now, the significance of that scene is, first of all, think about where we started this conversation about getting beneath the sort of marble veneer of George Washington. So for a historian, when there's a moment where someone who's so self contained as George Washington loses his temper, that's an interesting and revealing moment. And Washington despairs of getting these men from these different parts of the country to see themselves as Americans, he's frustrated I mean, he's writing home and saying, I'm really wondering why I put my life on the line, my fortune, my honor, and having this moment of self doubt. And to me, that moment that Israel Trask describes is a scene that explains that challenge that he has of trying to create a truly continental army out of these disparate elements. That's right from the very beginning of arriving and taking command of the army. And, and it will be an eight year process till 1783, where Washington stays in the tented field with that army. And this is one of his primary challenges, among many challenges, is just to build a kind of esprit de corps of these men who do not have as much in common as you would imagine they would as Americans.
- [15:47]
Lindsey Graham
I'm glad you brought up Washington staying in tents with his men because you have an object in the Museum of the American Revolution that speaks directly to the challenge that Washington faced. It's Washington's field tent. What did it mean? What is its symbolism?
- [16:02]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
Right. We call it Washington's war tent. It was Washington's private sleeping and office tent that he used during the Revolutionary War. It was delivered to him in the spring of 1778 as the army is marching out of Valley Forge. And so Washington did what very few leaders in that period did, and that is stayed in the tented field with the army. Unless he's called to public duty elsewhere for brief periods of time, he will only spend three nights at Mount Vernon, his home in Virginia, over the course of that eight year conflict. And I can't stress enough the significance that has in building this sprite de corps, building the commitment of those long serving, long suffering soldiers of his army to remain with him through that long conflict.
- [17:01]
Kate McKinnon
Yo, there tis I, Queen Mortuana of the Night Realm, aka Kate McKinnon and her raven minion, JoJo, aka Emily Lynn. If you do not download and binge my show, heads will roll. Heir apparent on Audible. I will cut off your head.
- [17:19]
Professor Lindsay Cormack
Oh, no. Maybe just tell them about the guest
- [17:21]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
stars like Richard Kind, Carrie Coon, Jimmy Fallon, et al.
- [17:25]
Kate McKinnon
But they were in it. And if you don't listen to them, then I will cut off your tongue, then cut off your head and then put the tongue in the head hole.
- [17:34]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
Ah, you tried.
- [17:35]
Kate McKinnon
Listen now exclusively on Audible and download the Audible app today.
- [17:39]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
You're off with your head.
- [17:41]
Kate McKinnon
I'm kidding.
- [17:49]
Dan Tabursky
Hey, Dan Tabursky here. I'm a podcast host, a journalist, and now with my newest project, the author of my own manifesto. Well, it's a manifesto about manifestos my search for inspiration in a world that feels more infuriating, more out of its freaking mind with each passing hour. Manifestos are a call to action, an artful scream. They capture our anger and they try to do something with it. This is my attempt to take the manifesto back from mass shooters and nihilists and return it to its rightful place with the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists, Internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into the world they want to see. Listen to Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Manifesto early and ad free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.
- [18:54]
Lindsey Graham
Many people think of the Revolution as a war between the Americans and the British. But that is not so simple, because even within the Americans, there were Patriots versus Loyalists. So it was also a Civil War, neighbor against neighbor, both sides living side by side. Can you share with us how this dynamic played out on the ground?
- [19:14]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
The Civil War character of the Revolution is an aspect that has almost been completely stripped from popular memory of the Revolution, with maybe the exception of, like, Benedict Arnold, we know, okay, this was an American hero who then changes sides and becomes a British general. But it kind of reduces the significance and actually how widespread loyalism was. There's a tremendous document that survives in the collection of the New York Historical Society that is called the Declaration of Dependence. So this is in the fall of 1776, as a response to the American Declaration of Independence, These Loyalists in Boston draft a document that actually sort of takes its structure and much of its language from the Declaration of Independence. But it's a Declaration of Dependence, and it is signed. Unlike the Declaration of Independence, which is signed just by members of Congress, over 300 New Yorkers actually put their names to this document. And so it's a good reminder that the American population was divided. You know, John Adams famously estimated that the American population might be broken into thirds, as a third leaning toward the Revolutionary cause, about a third neutral, and perhaps a third who were Loyalists.
- [20:40]
Lindsey Graham
But in addition to Loyalists and Patriots, there was another group, Native peoples, who were caught in the middle. Here they were forced to choose between the British and the Americans, unsure of which side might be best for their future prospects. What went into their calculations?
- [20:58]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
Yeah, Native people, of course, were the people between living in the midst of someone else's Civil war. And so early in the conflict, both British and American Officials generally encouraged Native people to just remain neutral. They described it as a dispute between a parent and a child and encouraged them to just stay out of the conflict. But that really changes in earnest after the Declaration of Independence, because now the sword has been drawn and. And this is going to be ultimately a battle to see who is going to prevail. And so the pressure is really turned up on Native people to declare themselves. We have to remember, first of all, that just a few years earlier, the British had been the expansionist entity. Many nations had sided with the French during the earlier conflict, the French and Indian War, because there were maybe 20 times the number of British colonists as French colonists. So there was less pressure on dispossessing Native people and taking their lands. It was more of a trading empire. And so fighting against the British made sense for a lot of native people 20 years earlier. Now, during the American Revolution, generally, the British seemed like a better bet because the Americans were very explicitly expansionist. You know, they were fighting this war in many ways to try to break free of the boundaries that had been set by the British ministry with the proclamation line of 1763, trying to. To keep the American colonial population east of the Appalachian Mountains. And so, for example, the Haudenosaunee, the people of the Longhouse, or the Iroquois Confederacy, as they were known to many, the Six nations who live in what's now sort of central New York, were divided during the war by this necessity foisted on them by the warring sides to declare themselves for one side or another. So most of the Six nations felt that siding with the British was the most likely path of success for securing their independence, their sovereignty against this expansionist American republic that was being created. The exception to that was part of the Tuscarora Nation, which was the sixth of the Six nations, and the Oneida Indian Nation. The Oneida Nation lived sort of the eastern side of the Six nations territory in New York. And they ultimately decided to support the Continental Congress. And so they are both one of America's first and one of America's most forgotten allies. More than 40 men came to Valley Forge, actually, in the spring of 1778 to provide military assistance to the Continental Army. They actually probably played a role in saving Lafayette from being captured by the British at the Battle of Barren hill in early 1778. But it wasn't just the Six nations, the Lenape or Delaware people, who were original inhabitants of the area of eastern Pennsylvania, what's now the Delaware River Valley, New Jersey, up around New York by the time of The Revolution. Many of the Lenape people had been forced from those original lands and were living in central and western Pennsylvania and what's now the state of Ohio. But they were being pressed by both sides about what to do. And there were factions that felt they were going to side and provide military assistance to the British. There were some who tried to remain neutral. There were some who actually were supportive of the American revolutionaries. You can say that about the Cherokee people down in the southern Appalachian mountains. And the tragedy for all of those groups is that they were treated basically the same after the Revolutionary War as enemy combatants, and that ultimately most of those nations suffered dispossession either immediately after or into the era of removal in the early 19th century.
- [25:00]
Lindsey Graham
And there is yet another group that had to make choices in the American Revolution. One of the obvious contradictions known even then of the Revolution was that it fought in the name of liberty, but preserved the institution of slavery. So what choices did free black people and enslaved black people have to make in the Revolutionary War themselves?
- [25:20]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
Again, another group of people sort of caught in between, you know, and war brings both great danger and peril, but can also create opportunities. And that is certainly the case for people of African descent living in the British colonies, the vast majority of whom, of course, are living as enslaved people, although there is a free black population in various parts of the colonies, certainly in Philadelphia. So an example of a free black young man, a man named James Fortin, is actually a great example of one of the kinds of stories. So James Fortin, who was born just a block actually from the front door of the Museum of the American Revolution near Dock street and Third street in Philadelphia. And when he was 9 years old, he actually was present at the Pennsylvania State House. We know it as Independence hall, when the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence happens on July 8th of 1776. So he hears those words. All men are created equal and endowed with by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
- [26:27]
Narrator of The Spy Who
Da da da da da.
- [26:28]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
And that really sticks with him. He had been orphaned recently, but was free. And as a 14 year old, he actually enlists and serves aboard a privateer ship engaged in a cruise to capture British ships off of the east coast of New Jersey, Pennsylvania. He comes back to Philadelphia in time for his 15th birthday. This is early September of 1781. And the two weeks that he's ashore, sort of on shore leave between cruises, he witnesses George Washington's Continental army marching through his neighborhood, right down Chestnut street, past Independence hall, on its way to victory at Yorktown in October of 1781 and many years later he would write about standing there and being filled with pride to see among the troops serving under Washington companies of black soldiers. He specifically called out the Rhode Island Regiment, which probably had one of the largest proportions of men of African and some of American Indian descent serving in the ranks of the army. Forten then goes back aboard a ship which actually is captured by a British ship. And those sailors who are captured are put aboard notoriously prison ship called the Jersey. This was basically a floating prison ship. And Forten's given a chance, as these men were, to just take an oath of allegiance to the king and serve in the British navy. But he said, you know, I'm an American. And he chooses actually imprisonment and likely very strong possibility of having debilitating disease or death rather than commit treason to what he considered his country. And Forten miraculously survives. He comes back to Philadelphia, he works in the trade his father had worked in, which was as a sailmaker, and ultimately becomes extremely wealthy, certainly the wealthiest person of African descent in Philadelphia in the 19th century. By the time he dies in 1842, he has used his wealth to support the liberation of enslaved people, the abolition movement. His children, his grandchildren continue that fight. So it's an amazing American story, but that was exceptional because of course, he was not born enslaved. For the enslaved population of African Americans, the war creates an opportunity because the British begin very early in the fall of 1775. Lord Dunmore, who had been the last royal governor of Virginia, offers through a proclamation that enslaved people who rallied to the king's arms would be offered their freedom. And the British extend that offer later in the and tens of thousands of enslaved people found their way to British lines because freedom wore a red coat for them.
- [29:30]
Lindsey Graham
There is yet another group who weren't in the center of the American revolutionary story. And that's the role that women played during the war. Give us a sense of what a woman's life was like and how they contributed.
- [29:43]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
Women, of course, at the beginning of the revolutionary era were not generally seen as political actors in the sense that they had the ability to vote. But that doesn't mean they were not politically active in other ways. All through the 1760s, the non importation movements, the production of domestic manufacturers, the so called homespun movement, ways to put pressure on British manufacturers and British politicians to overturn acts and taxes. A lot of those efforts depended upon women's active participation and support because women often controlled the domestic consumption, they managed households. And so making a decision not to purchase imported wares, imported tea, and to purchase things made in America to produce through spinning and weaving, to produce domestically produced cloth. Women at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, when the war breaks out, I mean, there's lots of accounts of women encouraging men to enlist, presenting them like with hand embroidered and painted flags. And you know, there are speeches saying, we do not want you to return without honor. When men leave farms, when they leave shops, women, as we've found throughout all the conflicts in American history. History have an elevated role in managing domestic operations. Famously, you know, Abigail Adams is left to because of John's presence here in Philadelphia and then ultimately leaving for Europe as a diplomat during the war. You know, she's managing a farm, managing the labor of the farm and all of the domestic economy that goes along with that
- [31:30]
Kate McKinnon
foreign
- [31:34]
Narrator of The Spy Who
jaffrey. And in the new season of the Spy who, we open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British empire and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the mags, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander in chief general George Washington. And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in U. S. History. Follow the spy who Now Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Betrayed the American Revolution early and ad free on audible.
- [32:34]
Michelle Obama
As Americans, we're constantly grappling with a fundamental do we settle for the world as it is or do we strive to create the world as it should be? Our answers tend to ebb and flow through the decades, but once, just after a war that nearly tore us apart, we came as close as we've come to answering it. And it's a story worth a closer look. I'm Michelle Obama and I'm proud to announce Higher Ground's new podcast, the Unfinished Promise. Guided by best selling author Malcolm Gladwell and featuring my husband, Barack Obama, this limited series uncovers the untold stories of reconstruction, what they mean for us today, and how our past can shape the future we choose to build. The Unfinished Promise is available now on audible or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [33:40]
Lindsey Graham
Let's discuss the Museum of the American Revolution. You mentioned that you have George Washington's field tent. What other artifacts does the museum showcase?
- [33:50]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
So, the Museum of the American Revolution, we're a new museum. We just opened in 2017. So we're just on the cusp of our 10th anniversary, and we're located two blocks from Independence Hall. So we're right in the sort of historic core of Philadelphia. There are about, at any given time, about 500 or so works of art, original objects, manuscripts on display in our core exhibition that we rotate regularly. So if you come a couple months after a visit, you're likely to see a different printing of the Declaration of Independence or some new story that's brought together through new objects. Of course, George Washington's tent is always on display, and you'll always see a printing of the Declaration of Independence, either a broadside printing or a newspaper printing from the summer of 1776. One of my favorite. It's actually two objects in the museum is a little pair of. Of red baby shoes made from red wool cloth that were made by the wife of a Revolutionary War veteran who comes back after serving through the entire Revolutionary War. He was a man by the name of James Davenport from just outside of Boston. And when he comes home at the end of the war in 1783, he brings with him a captured British redcoat, kind of as a souvenir. And he marries upon coming home, marries his sweetheart. They have their first child, a son, the following year. And they cut out a little pair of these baby shoes from this British soldier's coat. And to me, they symbolize that. Beating swords into plowshares. You know, this revolutionary generation that is engaged in this audacious idea of creating a nation in which the people are sovereign and the people secure their own rights, and against all odds, they succeed. And the long suffering soldiers who return at the end of that conflict with dreams of the future, you know, it's embodied in the birth of a child. And so for me, that little pair of baby shoes really sets the hair on the back of my neck standing on end every time I see them on display in the museum.
- [36:05]
Lindsey Graham
There's another exhibition that I find surprising for a museum centered on the American Revolution, just because of its time. But you have a hall of photographs. Describe that.
- [36:15]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
One of the important messages for the museum is that the Revolutionary War and the American Revolution are related, but they are not synonyms. And this is something that the revolutionary generation wrote about and actually sort of debated a little bit about. Well, what do we mean when we say the words American Revolution? They separated it from the military conflict. They recognized that the war was revolutionary, but it was not the same thing as the American Revolution. John Adams, very famously, in an 1818 letter to a publisher Said the American Revolution happened before the war. It was a change in the hearts and minds of the people. There was another revolutionary founder, A man named Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphian, also a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a of Congress, who wrote a pamphlet on the eve of the Constitutional Convention, 1787. And he basically says there is a lot of confusion about what we mean when we say the American Revolution. He says the American War is over, meaning the Revolutionary War. But this is not the case with the American Revolution. Nothing but the first act of the great drama is over. And it is, it is Russia's spirit, not just because he's a Philadelphian, that really we lean into in the Museum of the American Revolution. We want you to understand that the American Revolution is an ongoing, unfinished experiment in liberty, equality and self government. And so we wanted a way at the end of your journey through this story that you were left with this idea that you are now a revolutionary. And so the way we try to convey that spirit, as you're walking through this hall at the end, we have a wall of photographs that we've reproduced and they're kind of beautifully backlit, so they're glowing and have a real presence. And you're looking at the faces of 75 people from the revolutionary generation who lived into the age of photography. Some of them were children, some of them were soldiers, some of them were enslaved, some of them were neutrals. One of them is an American Indian, veteran of the battle of Oriskany. But they all lived past 1840. And you're looking in the faces of that revolutionary generation. So first of all, it sort of is a way to reinforce that this was a real story that we've told you that these people really existed. And we tell the story of how in the 1840s, 1850s, as America's first greatest generation is passing. And you know, in our time, we are very cognizant of the World War II generation passing now. You know, literally every day we're losing our connection to the lived experience of the generation of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Well, that same sense of passing, of this living memory was happening in the 20 years before the American Civil War. And it was an era that has a lot in common with, with our era today. This was a period of mass migration and a mass emigration to the United States. New kinds of people were settling in North America. Large numbers of Catholic, Germans and Scandinavians and others are beginning to come to America. And it sparks anxiety because what is the connection of these new Americans to the republic. And are we gonna be able to sustain this republic with people who aren't directly connected to the founding? And this comes to a sort of point in the Lincoln Douglas debates, because, of course, one of the existential crises is over what will happen ultimately with slavery. And if abolition occurs, can people of African descent become citizens? You know, is that what Jefferson meant? It was the Declaration for everyone. And during the Lincoln duc. Douglas debates, of course, Douglas is saying, no, this is a white man's document and a white man's republic. And Lincoln's answer in his fabulous. What becomes known as the electric cord speech should be as well known as the Gettysburg Address. Because Lincoln takes up this question. It's just after the fourth of July. He says, we've all come together recently, as we do every 4th of July, with our families, with our communities. We feel these bonds that are strengthened between us, and we connect back through our fathers and our grandfathers to the glorious Revolution. But then he goes on to observe and says, there are 30 million Americans now, and half of them cannot look back. They have no family connection to the founding moment of the American Revolution. They've come since that time. But he says, when they look back at that old declaration and they read the word, all men are created equal. And they feel that this is the creed that has animated them, it is why they have come to these shores, that they become flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood of the people who wrote those words in the Declaration. They are American revolutionaries. And so that wall of photographs is intended to convey that idea to you as a visitor. And so when what the very last experience you have in the galleries is to see yourself reflected in a series of mirrors that are positioned on a wall with the simple words meet the future of the American Revolution positioned among them. And that's really the big message of the museum. The end should be to feel this deep, emotional, empathetic connection to this revolutionary generation, to understand the powerful tools that they left us, to govern ourselves, to make sure that we can resolve disputes among ourselves using the pen rather than the sword. And it's a glorious history, one that is filled with many dark chapters. And we are a warts and all museums, so we do not shy away from also making sure that we share all of the ways we have not lived up to the ideals that are in those founding documents. But it could not be, at this moment of our 250th anniversary, more important for all of us to sort of recommit ourselves to the cause of the American revolution and the ideals that are expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
- [43:12]
Lindsey Graham
Scott Stephenson, thank you so much for speaking with me today on American Historytellers.
- [43:16]
Dr. Scott Stephenson
It's been a great pleasure.
- [43:17]
Narrator of This Is Actually Happening AI
Thank you.
- [43:18]
Lindsey Graham
That was my conversation with Dr. Scott Stevenson, President and CEO of Philadelphia's Museum of the American Revolution from Audible Originals. This is the seventh and final episode of our series on the American Revolution. On the next episode, we'll explore the lives of five legendary figures, including the gunslinging lawman Wild Bill Hickok, the infamous outlaw Butch Cassidy, and the trailblazing performer Annie Oakley, whose daring exploits on the American frontier came to define the spirit of the Wild West. Follow American Historytellers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of American Historytellers ad free by joining Audible. And to find out more about me and my other projects, including my live stage show coming to a theater near you, go to notthatlinseygraham.com that's not that. Lindseygraham.com American Historytellers is hosted, edited and produced by me, Lindsey Granford Airship this episode was produced by Paulie Stryker, senior producers Alita Rosanski and Andy Herman Managing Producer Desi Blalock Music by Thrum Sound Design by Molly Bach, Executive Producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, Head of Creative Development at Audible Audible Kate Navin, Head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Chiazza Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2026 by Audible Original.
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Tom Holland
Are they the most important men in American history? I am Tom Holland. And I am Dominic Sambrook, and we are the hosts of the Rest Is History. And we've just released a series on four of the Founding Fathers. One of them is Benjamin Franklin, the elder statesman of the Revolution, and another is Thomas Jefferson, the man who loved liberty but who also kept slaves and slept with one of them. And we're looking at George Washington Washington, a Valley Forge and the famous jewel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. So here the full series at the Rest Is History.