ASH 3002y Class Notes
March 10, 1999

Whose Revolution Anyway? The Rhetoric of Revolution
and
Republican Women

Discussion of texts left over from last time:

• Thomas Paine, From Common Sense [1776]and The Crisis, No. 1 (1777), pp. 691-705.
  • See especially p. 694.
• Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence (1776) in The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, pp. 714-719.
  • See especially the opening sentence.
• J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, "Letter III:  What Is an American" (1782), pp.641-659
  • See especially the last paragraph on page 643.

Then, move on to the following new material:

• the Letters of  John and Abigail Adams  (1774-78), The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1, pp. 675-691, plus handout.
  • See especially the handout and page 686.
• Judith Sargent Murray, "On the Equality of the Sexes" (1790), The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1, pp. 786-795.
• Susanna Rowson, Charlotte:  A Tale of Truth (1791), The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1, pp. 850-916.
  • See especially page 864.

Additional reading: (Note that this is a very partial list.)

• Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 1980).
• Hannah Foster, The Coquette (available in Oxford and Penguin editions)
• Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word:  The Rise of the Novel in America (New York:  Oxford UP, 1986).

Electronic, Web-Based Resources

• For searchable electronic versions of some of the principal revolutionary and constitutional documents, including The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and The Federalist Papers:
  • The Yale Law School Avalon Project -- http://elsinore.cis.yale.edu/lawweb/lawschool/webtfp.htm
  • Emory Law School Page -- http://www.law.emory.edu/Federal
  • Oklahoma Law School Page -- http://www.law.uoknor.edu/hist/
  • Docments from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention in American Memory -- http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/bdsds/bdsdhome.html
• For an excellent bibliography of published accounts and interpretations of the Revolutionary Era, 1760-1790:  Mighigan State,PBS and OIEAHC --http://revolution.h-net.msu.edu/
• For some maps of the Revolutionary Era, see the University of Georgia's Hargrett Collection:
  http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/revamer.html