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There were some who participated in the revolution who recognized
that if America was to survive as an independent country, it would
need to continue to build a national identity based at least in
part on an awareness of its history and build a set of traditions
that grew out of that history. Based on this concern, men like
Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and printer Isaiah Thomas
wrote books, founded libraries, and organized other kinds of intellectual
and historical societies. As John Adams had predicted, Americans
also routinely celebrated the anniversary of the signing of the
Declaratioin of Independence, although they did that on the fourth
of July rather than on the second. (insert links and more explanations
here)
As Americans prepared to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of
its independence, people began to become aware that those who
were present at the birth of the nation were dying off. These
fears were intensified when both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
both died on the anniversary itself: July 4,
Creating a National Memory
Acts of Founders--Jefferson's Library, AAS, Franklin's various
institutes, Mercy Otis Warren and other histories.
Reminiscences of Revolutionaries
Daniel Pierce Thompson's interview of Jefferson
Obituaries of Founders
Famous
Obits List at Archiving
Early America
1830's and the 50th Anniverary of the Revolution
John Quincy Adams, "The Jubilee of the Constitution, delivered
at New York,
April 30, 1839, before the New York Historical Society."
Orations
Wirt and Weems bios.
Emerson's "Concord Hymn"
Pictorial
Field Book of the Revolution, by Benson J. Lossing, 1850
Keye's Diary, Description of Anniversary Celebration of Revolution
Revolutionizing the Revolution:
Using the Founders and Founding Documents to Ignite a Second American
Revolution in the 19th Century
Life and Narrative of William J. Anderson, Twenty-four Years a
Slave; Sold Eight Times! In Jail Sixty Times!! Whipped Three Hundred
Times!!! or The Dark Deeds of American Slavery Revealed. Containing
Scriptural Views of the Origin of the Black and of the White Man.
Also, a Simple and Easy Plan to Abolish Slavery in the United
States. Together with an Account of the Services of Colored Men
in the Revolutionary War-- Day and Date, and Interesting Facts,
William J. Anderson, Chicago: Daily Tribune Book and Job Printing
Office, 1857. Available online through
Documenting
the American South at the University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill.
Narratives
of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier
of the Revolution, During a Captivity of More than Twenty Years
Among the Slaveholders of Kentucky,
One of the So-Called Christian States of North America. Lewis
Garrard Clark, Boston: Published by Bela Marsh, 1846.Available
online through
Documenting
the American South at the University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill.
See also:
The Civil War:
April
19th 1775 [Pictorial envelope comparing Battle of Lexington
to the Civil War's Battle of Baltimore.]
The Centennial:
The
Centennial Exhibition: Philadelphia 1876, including Something
for the Children or Uncle John's Story: His Visit to the Centennial
Exposition
19th and Early Twentieth Century Historians on the Revolution:
Benson
J. Lossing's Household History for All Readers, 1877
(listed here as Our Country); George Bancroft's The Great
Republic, early 1900's (Note: you can also download copies
of Our
Country and Bancroft's The
Great Republic by Master Historians at Blackmast
Online
The Bicentennial:
By the time Americans celebrated the Bicentennial in 1987, the
memory of the leaders of the revolution was still revered by most.
However, as the issue of slavery long since settled for all practical
purposes by the Civil War, the question of the founders' attitudes
and practices with respect to slavery should theoretically have
been more open to discussion. However, when Thurgood
Marshall, the first African-American supreme court justice addressed
this issue in a speech he delivered during the Bicentennial,
it provoked a great controversy.
