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Civics & Coffee: A History Podcast
America at 250: Revolution & Memory with Ethan Healey Pt. 1
00:47:43
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Civics and Coffee, a history podcast. The show all about United States history delivered to you in the time it takes to enjoy your morning cup of coffee. I'm your host, Alicia, a historian trained in United States history with a passion for telling both the known and unknown parts of America's past. So grab your coffee and get ready for some bite sized history. Hey everyone. Happy 4th. Welcome to the first episode in my special summer series of conversations exploring American history and its many interpretations. Today's conversation is a long one and is broken into two parts with part one airing today and part two releasing on Tuesday. Members of the Patreon can listen to the entire show now. If you are not a member yet, head on over to my website at www.civicsandcoffee.com. i've also included a link in the show notes. Not only will you get access to the conversation in full, but you will also get to enjoy bonus perks like book reviews and access to a bonus series I call Civics and Cocktails, all for less than the cost of a latte. Thanks, peeps. Now enjoy part one of my conversation with Ethan Healy. Hey everyone, if you are listening to this on Release day, Happy July 4th. This year marks the semiquincentennial of the United States and the American Revolution. It's been receiving a lot of airplay lately, and given the date and the anniversary, I wanted to reflect on the American Revolution historical memory and how historians have helped us evolve in our understanding of the Founding era. To do that, I wanted to welcome back a former guest of the show and early America expert, Ethan Healy. Ethan is the 2026 New Hampshire Daughters of the American Revolution Outstanding Educator of the Year. He is an author and he is a historian of the early Republic. So welcome back, Ethan.
- [02:10]
B
Hey, thanks for having me. I'm very, very happy to finally be talking about early America.
- [02:15]
A
Steph, I'm happy to have you. And since you are the expert on early America in this conversation, I think I want to start with asking you this question. What does the American Revolution mean to you?
- [02:29]
B
Well, in our conversations I've thought a lot about this, especially coming up and with so much going on, and I think ultimately what I've concluded about the American Revolution, and I'm sure we'll talk about in a couple of capacities, is that the American Revolution is still an incomplete discussion. And as much as a lot of the discussions around the American Revolution go back to sort of this single date, which is July 4th, you know, it's far deeper than that, right? And it goes, I mean there's so many different arguments. You could talk about 16, 19, you could go even further back than that. You can talk about the Colombian exchange and the Atlantic slave trade and all this stuff. But ultimately I think that the American Revolution is a, is a unfinished argument as it relates to things like liberty and citizenship and gender dynamics and power. And you would think that because this is such a small, I mean, the American evolution is such a small thing in the context of world history, but there's still so much more that we have to say about it.
- [03:40]
A
Yeah, I was thinking back on this, and again, early America is not my area of expertise. As you and I have been talking about this, as we've been planning this episode. I'm much more comfortable in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. But I was trying to think, okay, you know, what, what does it mean to me? And I'm also a big fan of pop culture stuff. So I was thinking, you know, it's like an opening statement in a, in a 250 year legal drama. Right. And what does it mean to, to have a representative democracy?
- [04:11]
B
Right.
- [04:11]
A
Like, that's what I think of when I think of the American Revolution. It's, it was a, it was a starting point, not an ending point. It was the start of a conversation. There's, I think, some arguments and some interpretations about whether or not the framers themselves wanted that to be the starting point or the ending point, which I think we'll, we'll get into in, in later part of the conversation. But I think for me, the frustrating thing and the great thing about the country and American history is that this experiment of ours is that it's always iterative and there's, it's an ongoing conversation and we're just, we're still young. When you look at all the other countries in the world, all the other governing structures in the world, and we're, we still got a lot of learning to do.
- [05:01]
B
Yeah, we do still have a lot of learning to do. I remember a couple of years ago when England was celebrating the anniversary of the Magna Carta, Right. And like that is such a important document in world history, but also for American history. And I just think it's funny some of the things that we celebrate. That's an 800-year-old document, and we have a 250-year-old document which is incredibly important and meaningful just in a lot of different ways. So you're, I mean, you're absolutely right. We are still very, very young.
- [05:35]
A
Well, and kind of talking about, still learning about it. What are some historians that have influenced the way that you kind of think about the American Revolution?
- [05:45]
B
Well, honestly, this. This was probably the hardest question for me in. In going back to preparing for this, because as you and I both know, we could read, you know, or list off historians who mean so much to us. And we, you and I have talked a lot about how, like, historians are celebrities to us, and if you aren't part of that world, you really kind of don't get that. But it's true. And so there are definitely a couple. The first one that always comes to mind is Alan Taylor, who is an expert in early America, and he is probably the reason why I became a historian. In terms of the work. His perspective on the American Revolution is a very interconnected one, and I really appreciated that he exposed me to a completely different set of ideas that I did not understand that the American Revolution is not just a North American thing, but it is, in fact, a South American thing and a European thing and an African thing, right? And it goes so, so far beyond what we conceptualize it. And the majority of his work, I would say, has been attempting to contextualize a lot of this in a global context. And I really appreciate any historian who can do that. And it makes sense, right? In such a large scale is really, really impressive to me. So he's somebody who I admire thoroughly. I've had the pleasure of meeting him twice and have my stuff, some. Some books signed by him. So that. That is my. For me, that's my ultimate historian celebrity. So he's the one that comes to mind.
- [07:25]
A
This question was hard for me to think of and respond to for a whole host of different reasons. And that was because I am not an expert of early America. And I was even trying to think back to, like, my undergraduate days, right? I was thinking, okay, well, what courses when I was in undergrad did I take about early America? And it was really just kind of the foundational survey courses. Once I got to my upper division, I focused on labor, I focused on women, I focused on African American history. I didn't. So I. I completely bypassed any kind of scholar who would have been foundational to early America. So I'm. I'm completely a babe in the woods. And so one of the many reasons why I'm very fond of this podcast is because I've gotten a chance to enhance my knowledge and my breadth of awareness of other scholars. So I would say, you know, pre podcast, I. I would say was kind of those kind of commercial histories, right? So like Joseph Ellis, the Quartet, Stacy Schiff, the revolutionary. Right. Ron Tranel, Washington's biography. Like, that's kind of how I knew about and what I knew about the revolution. Right. I. I'm a social historian, so I kind of geared towards, like, the people and how their relationships interplayed. I'm a terrible, terrible military historian. You know, battles and campaigns. And I'm. I'm. I'm so not your girl there. And so I will. I'll get into kind of my, My post podcast people who I'm. I'm so fond of. But I'll. I want to give you a chance to kind of talk about some of your other. Other people that you would pick.
- [09:13]
B
Yeah, those are good choices, by the way. Those aren't, you know, they're commercial in the sense that a lot of people have read that sort of stuff. You know, I mean, the, the one book that I think anybody and everybody knows, it's in every goodwill I've ever gone to. And that's John Adams by David McCullough.
- [09:30]
A
Yeah, right.
- [09:31]
B
Like, that was. Especially when it first came out, like, that blew up and everybody read that thing. So if you were to ask an ordinary individual name five books about the American Revolution, majority probably wouldn't be able to do it. But I would say for those who did do it, they would say probably John Adams by David McCullough. But I tried to think a little bit outside the box in terms of the specific historians who have influenced me in my area. The other, another person is Woody Holton, who wrote a brilliant book called Liberty is Sweet. And he is a really interesting individual because he is a historian who views the people at the center of the story. Right. So Alan Taylor is an individual who brings the global context along with the people. But Woody Holton is all about the people from the ground up. You know, you're looking at your. Your farmers, you're looking at your slave owners, you're looking at the enslaved, you're looking at the military people. You're, you know, you're looking at literally everybody you can think of, the merchants. He is somebody who is able to. In that book, Liberty is Sweet, specifically, is able to do it in a. In a way that is concise, yet so informational, and it all connects together. And it's basically this idea that liberty is sweet not just for the Founding Fathers, but for all of these other different groups. And sweet can also turn bitter. Right. So that is a big part of his argument in that book. So I love Woody Holton for that. Another one is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who is A really, really big name in the early America field. And she's probably most well known, less well known for her books and more well known for the quote that she said, well behaved women seldom make history. She came up with that quote and that book, a Midwife's Tale that she wrote, which won the. What won the Pulitzer, I believe she put women at the center of it. And she was one of, really the first major historians to do that, to put women at the center of the American Revolution. And one of the beauties of that book is instead of talking about some of the bigger names like Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren, she looked at this one midwife and she went through her entire diary and basically retold that story. And it's a perfect example of why we love to do what we. What we do, because you just go through the research and you retell that. And she was one of the first to do it in a field that has been predominantly dominated by men, where the field, especially in early America, has been dominated with a focus on military campaigns, as you mentioned, and this idea of the ideas of the American Revolution. And she said basically that it was a little bit more, not necessarily complicated, but she integrated all of that into telling this story about this one Midwife. So that's a brilliant, brilliant book. And the final one that I chose was Annette Gordon Reed, who is another name, I feel like in modern times who. You can't. You can't understand the revolution without reading or listening to her stuff. And, you know, she is, of course, she wrote the book the Hemingsons. Hemings is of Monticello, and she's also one that pretty much confirmed that Thomas Jefferson had a child with his slave. So she was. And of course, that was a really, really big deal. Still is, like, it's still a big topic of conversation when people bring it up. But so she helped me understand the differences in telling a complete story. Right. And Sally Hemings, in particular, Thomas Jefferson's slave. And unfortunately, her story will never be fully told because the records are just not there. So Annette Gordon Reed in that book, had to fill in a lot of those gaps. And I mean, that's a great example of a work that is done brilliantly in a way that sort of brings it all back together. So those are some of the ones that I have. I could, I could. This whole podcast could be just about the historians who have influenced me, but that's. Those are the ones I'll give you for now.
- [13:52]
A
Yeah, well, Annette Gordon Reed was just the outgoing president of Oah. So she was at the conference in Philadelphia earlier this year. And she is a, a physically small woman, but her presence, obviously I was expecting, I think because of who she is and what she's contributed to the historical field, I was expecting, you know, a woman that is probably 12ft tall, right. And every time she walked into a room, I was very nervous. She was very kind, Very, very kind. But even she was, I knew she was behind me as a, as a guest to a panel. And I think I wrote a substack about this. And I went to ask a question and just knowing that she was there, I flubbed my question because I'm like, oh my God, Annette Gordon Reed is in the same room as me. My God.
- [14:49]
B
I know. That's how, that's how influential she is to the field. And I mean, yeah, she's really, really great. I have not had the pleasure of being near her, but one day, yes,
- [15:01]
A
quite a lovely woman, but I just was like, I'm not worthy. Oh my God, I'm breathing the same air as, as Annette Gordon Reed.
- [15:08]
B
But is that how you felt meeting John Meacham?
- [15:11]
A
Oh, God, yes. Also, yes, yes, Also as well. I tried to, you know, make, make a little, make a little joke and he's just like, uh huh, sure, uh huh, just here, take your book. But he was very kind, he was very, very sweet and made my, made my day, made my weekend.
- [15:27]
B
That's good. And you have a book signed by him?
- [15:29]
A
I do. I have two now. But for the podcast, kind of bringing it back to the, to, to the podcast. One of the things I do love about the podcast is the, the opportunity to speak with just these preeminent scholars, these people that are breaking ground in their field. And obviously because the revolution is having a moment with the anniversary, I am so thankful that I got to talk to Rick Bell, who did the American Revolution and the Fate of the World. And you know, I, I had known, I had a, you know, a, an awareness, right. That the American Revolution was much more global in perspective than I think we were even taught. Well, at least I was taught in school, but I think he just goes so far beyond that US and French connection again. He also does it beautifully because he does it with a human connection. So I think he does a great kind of Woody Holton, Alan Taylor combination. He tries to tell that global story, but with a, with a human element. So just so well done. And then Ronald Angelo Johnson with entangled alliances. I just, for me, again, not having, you know, that expertise, I feel like it's some pretty groundbreaking work. He's telling the history of the American Revolution kind of through a diplomatic lens and sharing how interconnected the, the ideas of revolution were through Haiti, what becomes Haiti, Saint Domain and the, the colonies. And I just, that was an incredible book to read. And it's a very finite piece of time. He's not, he's not doing this huge expanse of history. It's kind of a, what you would call kind of a micro history, but it's, I just, my mind was blown. It's very well done. One of the other ones that I read several years ago was Caitlin Marie Carter's Democracy in Darkness. And she talks about this like, fine line of kind of the limited transparency in the early years of the republic and how when they were trying to formulate this government, how they couldn't really be as kind of forthright as we would expect of our government. And so that was a pretty transformative book, reading through that. And I think a historian that we're going to probably talk about and fawn over several times in this conversation is Dr. Lindsay Trevinsky. And she was one of the, she was my first guest with the Cabinet and her book about the, you know, George Washington's Putting Together the Cabinet was to me just so kind of eye opening, I think, and how she delicately frames the precarity of the new government and how cautious Washington was. He knew every step that he took was kind of one for the ages. And I just also, she's just an amazing writer. It's ridiculous. I just love, I love her prose. I love her turn of phrase. And so again, just one of the things I love about this podcast is that I get to have all these fantastic conversations. So again, kudos to her. I know we'll be probably talking about her just because of her wonderful contributions to the field.
- [18:28]
B
So yeah, to comment on a couple of those, Rick Bell's book, it has been a my to be read list for quite a while and it is at the top of the pile and it is something I'm, I'm going to read this summer now that I have time to do so. And so, yeah, Rick, Rick Bell. I've heard magnificent things about that book. Rick Bell, I've, I've read some of his other stuff and he's another really, really great writer. I mean, he, he writes it like, like a thriller in, in some ways. Like he, he's just a very, very, very good writer. To your point, to your discussion of the diplomatic lens, that's one thing I focus on with My students, especially teaching world history, vast majority of them have no idea or zero idea about the Haitian Revolution. Vast majority of them don't really understand the connection between the American Revolution and the French Revolution in particular. And that connection is so, so close. And I try to, you know, when I'm teaching, try to get them to see that connection. So there's another one I'm going to have to buy, even though I told myself I would not buy more books for the summer. But that'll be bought. And yeah, sure, I mean, Lindsay Sherbinski
- [19:39]
A
will touch on later, but yeah, she's just amazing.
- [19:42]
B
She's gold. Yes, she's gold.
- [19:45]
A
Well, so we've talked about kind of the people and the historians and the experts who have. Have provided the basis of our. Our understanding of the American Revolution. Have you read anybody lately who's kind of challenged the way you thought about the American past?
- [19:59]
B
There's two. I. I recently was able to finally read David Blight's Frederick Douglass and Oof, man, that. That. It's definitely, I think, one of the best books I've read in the past decade. Just, I mean, David Blight's a brilliant writer anyway, Right. But this story that he told needed to be told. And I know this is used, like, so casually, but I really do think, like, every American needs to read that book, that biography. And it didn't challenge me in a way that I disagreed with him by any means, but he. It challenged me in a way that I started really thinking differently about Frederick Douglass's role in America. And he sort of. After I read that biography, I think he sort of came up on my, you know, like, he's probably in the top 10, you know, favorite historical figures now just because of his role, his influence, his impact, his understanding on the world and his. I mean, his speeches, his. Some of his speeches are some of the best things that have ever been written in American history and world history. So that book was a whirlwind. It was very long. But that was something that I think I took like two and a half months to read it because I wanted to digest it and I wanted to give it the time that it deserved. And I mean, the first front half of the book is about Frederick Douglass's rise and, you know, rise to escape slavery and all of these things, and how he just becomes this influential figure from an enslaved person to being a person in Abraham Lincoln's ear, saying, what are you doing? And even then, right. Like it wasn't. It wasn't enough. Right. Like you weren't going far. And I think that's something that's. Challenges. Of course, Abraham Lincoln is sort of the epitome of American history. Right. The center, aside from George Washington. And to hear Douglass's side of that relationship is so fascinating. So that's certainly one for me is Frederick Douglass's. Again, not challenging in a way of. I disagreed, but challenging in a way of just blew me away.
- [22:12]
A
I have to agree with everything you said about Blight's take on Douglas. I read it a couple years ago in partial preparation for some episodes I wanted to do about Douglas. And again, Douglass is a guy that you think, you know, Right. He's one of the, like, 10 people that black Americans that were taught in school. And so I picked it up because, you know, I. I knew about David Blight. I knew he was kind of a preeminent historian, and I thought, well, if. If David Blight took the time to write seven, some 700 pages about Frederick Douglass, I think he has something to say. So let me go ahead and take a look at this.
- [22:53]
B
And 300 pages of footnotes.
- [22:56]
A
Exactly, Exactly. So I was like, you know, let me see, am I gonna. Am I gonna regret this? You know, is this gonna be a very dry academic text? But no, the Frederick Douglass that jumps from those pages is a man who is nuanced, who is complex, who is so much deeper and so much more of a powerful figure than I ever thought possible. And that is, you know, obviously, that's a credit to who Douglas was as a man. But I do want to give Blight the credit of. You pulled that from the archives. You pulled that from his speeches. You made him so much more than just this two dimensional character. So, yeah, I agree with you. That was. It's a powerful, powerful book. It is definitely. If we're. If we're making, you know, Ethan and Alicia's top 25 books that every American must read, I agree with you. That is definitely one that they have to read.
- [23:55]
B
Yes, yes. And it really is like, again, one of the best books I've read in. In this. In a decade. Just no history work is ever flawless. But, I mean, that's pretty damn close.
- [24:10]
A
Yeah, I agree. Well, for me, you know, I've been struggling with how. How do we commemorate? How do we acknowledge. What do we. How do. How do we. How did we get here? You know, as much as I've studied the past, I still kind of wrestle with how. How. How did we get here? And so one of the books that's really kind of put everything in reverse and, and flipped everything on its head for me was Tad Stormer's Resistance History of the United States. It is something that will challenge you in the best of ways, but, you know, there are some things in there that we're going for the jugular. He's not messing around. It's also interesting to me because it's a book that he does not. He has no footnotes. There's no end sources. There's no endnotes. Like, he is just giving you the history, just the facts, ma'. Am, and he wants you to use it as a guidebook. And there are things, obviously in there that I agree with in terms of how he frames certain things, right? He talks about this idea that there's this nationalist idea, this nationalist version of history, and that part of the reason why the United States hasn't progressed as much as it can, and I would argue should have, is because we get stuck with this nationalist idea of our history, right? That the American Revolution was predetermined. And every historian worth their salt would tell you nothing about the American Revolution was predetermined. I think it's something that we're going to talk about later. Nothing about it was preordained. Nothing about it was, you know, kind of a sure thing. But there is this general consensus, right, that it was predestined and shining City on a hill, Right? And part of that is pop culture. Part of that is the politics. And he has some arguments for why he thinks that that's the way that it is. And there's some parts of it that's very uncomfortable. And I, I kind of, I, There were a couple parts where I was, I had to put the book down and, and really think, be like, okay, all right. Whew. Okay. But I, I, I think it's, it's worth, if people can open the book, read it with an open mind, and understand that this, to me, Ted Stormer's book is a perfect example of you're gonna read history sometimes that you're not gonna agree with every argument that they make. You're not gonna agree with every interpretation that you see. That book is perfect example of that. But it's good history because it makes you think, because it makes you want to dive into the argument, because it makes you want to evaluate the source and why does he come to this argument? And why. Where's the context there? And so I just think it's a fascinating take. And he stops at Reconstruction, and he makes a very good ending argument. But I don't want to spoil it, because I want people to, I want people to read it. So I'm going to just leave it there. I'm just going to dangle it.
- [26:56]
B
Interesting. You're like, you're kind of advertising, advertising it that way. Now you all gotta go read it.
- [27:03]
A
Yes.
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B
I have not read Stormer's book, so I cannot comment on the, any part of that book. But does he give an explanation at all as to why he doesn't use footnotes or endnotes or there's no index either?
- [27:17]
A
Yeah, he does not explain. Now, to be fair, I did get an advanced reader's copy, so it's entirely possible that maybe the actual, you know, the one that goes to press will have endnotes. But typically, even when I get an advanced reader's copy, they, they have the, the bibliography. So he has explained in the introduction to the book that it's like a field guide. He wants people to take, take it, rip it up, highlight it, you know, use, use what they want and throw away the rest. So I wonder if that's kind of part of the ethos of the book. But, yeah, it's a very different approach to writing history, which I found completely fascinating.
- [27:53]
B
That's interesting. That reminds me of Howard Zinn's A People's History in the United States. In the same way of presenting a history through that lens as sort, but not providing footnotes or which, I mean, Howard then is criticized for a lot of different things, but from an academic and historical perspective, that's probably his main criticism, is that there's no source to go back to. And you and I both know that sources are not everything, but they're, you know, a good chunk. And I love going through the index and the footnotes, and I'm such a sucker for that.
- [28:29]
A
But yeah, yeah.
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B
But my other one, which is kind of along the same line a little bit, is a book that is not written by a historian, but instead written by a philosophy professor named Jason Stanley, which is a book called Erasing History. And the subtitle of that book is How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. And I, I, I think this book came at a very unique moment in our history where it seems like a lot of our past and American past is being seen through the lens of perhaps a nationalist take, seen through the lens of even people going as far as saying that we are living in a fascist state. And I'm certainly not here to correct or undermine any of that, but I think Jason Stanley makes a pretty strong argument for specifically how fascists and not just looking at fascists in things like Nazi Germany, which. Which is a main, sort of the main conversation. But he also looks at other fascist countries and sort of says how it's sort of fascists are very, very. It's a slow burn for them. Right. And they do things in a way that it's one thing here, one thing there, something there. Right. It's not all at once. And I think that's a real key thing to sort of understand. And this isn't just talking about necessarily the American past, but our past in general and sort of trying to come to the understanding of how fascist dictators use their role to influence history and history. One of the main common themes is under any dictatorship, under any totalitarian government, one of the first things it's done is erasing the history. Right. You burn the books, you destroy the statues, you destroy the. Any resemblance of things that you disagree with. That's a main thing. So there's so many different areas that you can sort of go with that, which. That kind of is correlated to Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny, which is lessons for the 20 or from the 20th century. And that's another book basically on a very similar line, much shorter than the one I just talked about. But the main thing is pretty much the same. History is one of the very first things to go. And silencing the people who teach the history, who write the history, who interpret the history, et cetera, is often another piece to go. And there's many ways to do that. Sometimes it is not as overt as, you know, trying to defund the Smithsonian. Right. Or there's so many that. That I can mention, but I. I won't. But anyway, that. That book challenged my way of how I'm trying to grapple with how do we celebrate this 2-50- anniversary in a country where we don't seem to be in a very celebratory mood? I mean, you. I guess you are in a celebratory mood if you'd like the ufc. But, you know, for. For a lot of us, even people who do and don't.
- [31:48]
A
Right.
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B
You're trying to grapple with how do we celebrate it. Right. And that's, I mean, part of why we're having this conversation. I think we're trying to figure it out.
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A
But yeah, yeah, I'm referring to it as a commemoration because it's. It's. I can't. I can't bring myself to say celebrate, but. Jason Stanley, I feel like looking through my books Here that he wrote something also about like fighting fascism, Right?
- [32:10]
B
Yes.
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A
Okay. He. I have one. Yeah, I have it. It's in my, it's in my TBR pile. So I knew that name sounded familiar.
- [32:19]
B
I think calling it a commemoration actually is, is good either way. I think calling it a commemoration even in the best of times, quote unquote, I think is better. Right. I think if we start calling it a full on celebration, we sort of run a lot of risks of what are we celebrating. Right. And there's a lot of different questions there. So even taking out the modern context out of it, even taking out the, the, you know, day to day stuff that we're living through now. Right. There's tons of stuff that we can still talk about and say, well, do we really want to celebrate that or how we want to celebrate that? So I think commemoration's probably better anyway.
- [32:56]
A
Yeah. The other book that I, I read and honestly I picked it up because I was panicking a little bit about our conversation because I said, oh gosh, I'm going to talk to like a super expert and he's going to ask me something and I'm going to be like, I don't know, John Adams, which is the American Revolution at 250. And really it's a collection of essays. So it's, I believe it's 24 historians and they wrote about all different aspects of the American Revolution. And it includes obviously some names that we're super familiar with. Joanne Freeman, Lindsay Travinsky, again, Annette Gordon Reed. And I thought it was really well done because for me it helped bring home for me that, that idea that we're not done with the American Revolution. The American Revolution is still with us. One of the, I think more poignant arguments in one of the essays was that some of the things that we failed to reckon with at the nation's founding, such as dealing with slavery, kind of impacted race relations to this day. And then there was even discussions around monuments and how we choose to commemorate and, and what that means. And that was somebody who was a historian over at the university uva right around Charlottesville. And so just it was there. The, the essays were all beautiful. They're all poignant obviously because they're written by these amazing historians and they're written also too, just super accessible. They're very short. Not, I think the longest essay was like 14 pages. So it is written for a general audience, which I, you know, as again, coming from somebody who's not super well versed in this space, I was very appreciative of that. But also I think it was the, the scope of the book was really great because it talked about race, it talked about early experiences, it talked about the founders, it talked about lived experiences. So it, it did try to cover a good wide swath. It doesn't cover everything. Cause obviously it's a very short book. It's less than 300 pages. They tried to keep the essay short. Right. And they had to, they had to come up with some sort of thematic structure to it. And I think they picked things that most people could have a tie to. But it just, it was really good. It was really grounding for me and it was really helpful to, in my own thinking about how I approach and how I'm thinking about the American Revolution and just the early years of the Republic. And so it was, it was, it was very helpful. As I approach, as we are approaching the, the 2-50th kind of how I think about it.
- [35:36]
B
There's a lot of great, I'm looking at the, the contents on Amazon. There's a lot of great people in there. What are Woody Holden's in there, which under part four, Lived experiences. So my point is made, and that's sort of his big thing is literally the lived experiences. So cool. Cool.
- [35:57]
A
So we've talked about the people who've written about it. So how has, I guess our understanding of the revolution changed over time? And thinking about too, like how have those celebrations changed over time?
- [36:10]
B
So this is something that is expertly done and your listeners are going to have a lot to read if, if this is their interest. There's a brilliant book called The Memory of 76 by Michael D. Hayden. And he talks about this. Exactly. And this is something I've been personally, professionally, academically interested in is how have we thought about the American Revolution over time, from the moment the first shots are fired or even going back to the intolerable acts, whatever your starting point is, right? Where have we gone? How have we interpreted it? How have we thought about it? And he ultimately discusses especially in the early Republic, in the years of the creating of the Constitution and the creating of trying to figure out what the hell we were doing, right? Trying to figure out like, oh, the Articles of Confederation sucks. It doesn't work, doesn't create a unified government. It doesn't create a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people, et cetera. And he discusses a lot about how in the early Republic they had to figure out national identity. They had to figure out and come up with this sort of national piece to it. Because what's often forgotten about the American Revolution is how it was never. It is America, and everybody supports it.
- [37:35]
A
And.
- [37:36]
B
And let's go right, There were a lot of divisions. There's not just. There's the obvious ones, right? There's the British and. And the colonists, but there's also the colonists and the colonists. There's also, you know, people who wanted nothing to do with the conflict, right? People who said, I want nothing to do with this. And what I've always often found fascinating is there were a lot of farmers who honestly didn't care what was going on. Like it was too outside of their box to even be thinking about, well, let's think about a new country, right? And that's interesting for so many reasons, because when we think about the American Revolution, we think of this huge rebellion and resistance. And of course, there was that, but there were also a lot of people who just said, I don't want anything to do with this. And on the flip side, there were also people like the Sons of Liberty who said, I'm all in. And this is everything. You know, we. Our rights are being taken away. But there's also people, colonists who said, no, I want to stay with the British. And one thing. And I don't teach the American Revolution much anymore, but when I did, one of the things I really stress is that Americans were very happy and content to be British. They really loved to be British. They identified so closely with Great Britain, and obviously not collectively and unanimously, but the vast majority of people were fine being British and they heavily connected with Great Britain. So when you lose that and you become your own country, what do you do then? Who do you. What do you connect with now? So this creating of a national identity in the early years of the Republic is such an important thing. That is a focus. So he talks a lot about in that book. To my point, Hayden talks a lot about that in his book the memory of 76. That's sort of the first half of the book. But then he also goes into sort of some of the more modern context. And sort of one of the things he touches on is the Lost Cause, which I know is probably something you could talk about a lot as well as that. That's right up your alley is one of the main areas, one of the prime sort of lost cause movements, right, Occurs right at the. The impetus of the Gilded Age. So. But this sort of lost cause myth and trying to identify yourselves, each side is trying to identify themselves with the Founding Fathers and How are you going to justify one way or another that George Washington also believed in this, but he also believed in this. And there's probably not a more complicated founding father than Thomas Jefferson, because Thomas Jefferson can be used in so many different ways. And he can be used to promote the idea that he liked having slaves. Right. And absolutely profited off from that. But then there's also so many other evidence and pieces where he contradicts himself 20 billion times. And I know there would be people who disagreed with that. But to my point, this lost cause agenda, so to speak, and this lost cause discussion of how they celebrate the 2 50th with looking at the same people, but interpreting them very, very differently. And I've always found that incredibly fascinating. And there's so many different other areas and other examples, but that book is the perfect evidence to me of how we go about commemorating the memory of 76 and to show that it's always been contentious. The way we celebrate America has always been contentious and it has never been straight and right to the point. And you know, the last big celebration was 1976. Right. 200th. And even then what was going on then? Right. Like Richard Nixon had just done Watergate. Right. And people were feeling some of the same things we're feeling right now. So I, I don't know. It's just, it's such a interest for me because I'm so interested in how we've changed our understanding and in some ways we haven't changed at all.
- [41:46]
A
Well, I think it speaks to just how foundational and, and pivotal the founding was. Right. That 250 years we're still thinking about how do we commemorate, how do we think about, how do we place it in the overall context, the historiography of everything else that we write about. Right. That politically it's, it's politically foundational. It's, it's, it created everything that we know. Right. And to your point about 1976, Mark Stein just published Bicentennial, which is kind of a, it was a history, I believe, of how the nation last celebrated the, the last time we were or memorialized or commemorated or otherwise acknowledged the American Revolution. I'm interested to. Now, I, you know, it's another book that I have on my to be read list. Yep.
- [42:49]
B
It's, it only grows. It never.
- [42:52]
A
Yeah, no, never. Yeah, I know. My, my husband has said we probably should get somebody out here to figure out how to build like a more substantial bookcase because you keep buying all these random bookcases and then they get filled up pretty quickly.
- [43:06]
B
I know, I know. Mine always says, where do they, like, where am I, where are we going to put all of these? Well, we'll, we'll find a place.
- [43:13]
A
Yeah, that's, that's tomorrow's problem. I'm not, I'm not worried about that exactly. Yeah, I, well, I think too, what I've appreciated about the expansion of how we've thought about it because I, you know, I, I think it, it was at least it felt like, I don't know if this is an accurate reflection of, you know, the, the historiography, but it, it kind of felt like it was a binary thing. Right. Great men built a great country. And I think over time what we've seen is with the diversity of voices, you're getting diversity of opinions, diversity of reading of the evidence. And so you're getting kind of that broader scope, depth, the, you're getting the inclusion of the indigenous nations that were here. We're going to, I think we're going to talk about Ken Burns here in a, in a minute because you can't, you can't talk about public history or history without talking at least once about Ken Burns. But even in his most, most recent, you know, 12 hour documentary, he talks, he, he, he includes the indigenous nations and how they had agency and how they were, you know, negotiating. And I, you know, I think for a very long time that wasn't how they were portrayed. And so it's good to see that now that there's a more diverse inclusionary aspect of how we think about how we talk about how we study the revolution.
- [44:30]
B
Yeah. And you can tell me whether it's true in your field, but I feel like in a lot of ways that's true all across the board about America's history in general, not just about the American Revolution, but encouraging. And including a lot of diverse perspectives is becoming, especially in the last, you know, 40 years or so, like, more important, more central to the story. And I think that's important. Of course, there are positives and negatives to each way of telling the story. But do you think that's true in your field?
- [45:05]
A
Oh, yeah. I study primarily, you know, welfare history and social safety net. History had its origins right, with mother's pensions, right after Civil War. Then it kind of dovetails into indigent aid and outdoor relief. And then you've got the Social Security Act of 1935 and off we go to the races. And, you know, you do get those early histories, but those early histories were more like institutional based. But Then with second wave feminism and more women historians. Robin Muncie, Alice Kessler Harris, Eileen Boris, Linda Gordon. They're all these women that are focused in on how did these policies get started? Why, you know, what was this idea of a deserving mother versus not deserving mother? And then just 10 years past them, you get this another line of inquiry, right, where you get Anneliese Orlick and Pramila Nadasen, who are looking at welfare rights activism. And so, yeah, no, definitely. I see it always constantly evolving. And so I think it's. I think it's great. And I think that's how you get a more holistic picture of the story, Right? The more voices, the better.
- [46:14]
B
I agree. I agree. And I think there's probably. There's probably a good chunk of historians, I think, that would disagree with the statement we just made. The more voices, the better. Can sometimes muddy the waters, right? But I think sometimes, like, there's the great thing about having, like, too many sources that you're working with, but then there's also the great thing about having too little sour to work with, right? And what absolutely sucks, and I know you've felt the same, is when you go to. You're, you're writing, you're writing, you're writing, you're researching, and then you find a source that says the exact opposite of what you've been trying to argue the whole time, and now you have to rethink your whole thing. And that's kind of the, I don't know, the fun part about one of the fun parts about what we do, but damn, is it frustrating.
- [47:00]
A
Yeah. After you're done crying. Well, at least after I'm done crying. Yep. All right, friends, be sure to come back on Tuesday to hear the rest of my conversation with Ethan. And if you just can't wait for the conclusion, head on over to civicsandcoffee.com or in the show notes. And sign up for the Patreon where you can hear this and access a bunch of bonus content. I hope you all have a safe holiday. I'll see you next time. Thanks for sitting down with me as I explored this chapter, American History. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe and share with your friends. I look forward to our next cup of coffee together.