“This Second War I Consider Equally as Holy as the First”

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-78
Author(s):  
James P. Byrd
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
The Bible

Americans rarely saw flags until 1861. Few people put up flags outside their homes, and churches did not normally fly them either. With the onset of the war, however, flags appeared everywhere—in churches, homes, businesses, and elsewhere. The flag northerners flew honored the nation of the beloved founders—a flag descended from the flag of the American Revolution—and as northerners honored the flag, they compared their war with the Revolutionary War. Not to be outdone, southerners insisted that they, not the northern aggressors, were carrying on the Revolutionary legacy. Which side was more faithful to the American Revolution? Americans debated this question throughout the war, and never more fervently than at the war’s beginning. As each side claimed to be most faithful to the patriots of 1776, they employed the Bible to support their arguments and to recruit soldiers for the fight.

Sybil Ludington, the Female Paul Revere: The Making of a Revolutionary War Heroine

2015 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-222
Author(s):  
Paula D. Hunt
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
The Past

Sybil Ludington, “the female Paul Revere,” has proven to be a remarkably protean figure in the memory of and contestation over the American Revolution. Her place in history has shifted in response to changing currents in culture and politics, demonstrating the ways in which the past is made and remade to satisfy contemporary audiences.

scholarly journals Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose: Dialoguing with Jewish Tradition

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 763
Author(s):  
Bart J. Koet
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Cultural Consciousness ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

It is the thesis of this article that a secular form of the biblical Exodus pattern is used by Woody Allen in his Broadway Danny Rose. In the history of the Bible, and its interpretation, the Exodus pattern is again and again used as a model for inspiration: from oppression to deliverance. It was an important source of both argument and symbolism during the American Revolution. It was used by the Boer nationalists fighting the British Empire and it comes to life in the hand of liberation theology in South America. The use of this pattern and its use during the seder meal is to be taken loosely here: Exodus is not a theory, but a story, a “Big Story” that became part of the cultural consciousness of the West and quite a few other parts of the world. Although the Exodus story is in the first place an account of deliverance or liberation in a religious context and framework, in Broadway Danny Rose it is used as a moral device about how to survive in the modern wilderness.

Writing the American Revolution: War Veterans in the Nineteenth-Century Cultural Memory

1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWARD TANG
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Henry David Thoreau ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
The Past ◽  
Bunker Hill ◽  
Israel Potter

With how little cooperation of the societies after all is the past remembered – At first history had no muse – but a kind fate watched over her – some garrulous old man with tenacious memory told it to his child.Henry David Thoreau,Journals (1842)In 1823, something of the bittersweet occurred in Cranston, Rhode Island: an aged revolutionary war veteran returned to his hometown after a prolonged exile in England. Hopeful about reuniting with his family and community after an absence of nearly fifty years, the old soldier was surprised and disappointed to learn that his property had been sold, his family had moved west, and few among the remaining villagers even remembered who he was. Such is the story of one Israel Potter. An adventurous fellow, he had fought at the battle near Bunker Hill, had met Benjamin Franklin, and, after being captured by the British, had roamed England after the war, continually poverty-stricken, while searching for a passage back to America. Once returned to Cranston, he applied for a federal pension for his wartime services. In all probability, Potter never received any financial compensation, but he left a narrative of his life, reminding his readers that at one point in the republic's history, he did matter.

Why the Fight against Hunger Mattered

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Rachel B. Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
Food Aid ◽  
British Colonies

This introductory chapter discusses the important role of hunger during the American Revolution. Enduring, ignoring, creating, and preventing hunger were all ways to exercise power during the American Revolution. Hunger prompted violence and forged ties; it was a weapon of war and a tool of diplomacy. In North America, Cherokee, Creek, Delaware, Iroquois (Haudenosaunee), Miami, and Shawnee Indians grew and destroyed foodstuffs during the Revolutionary War, which forced their British and American allies to hunger with them, and to furnish provisions that accommodated Native tastes. By the 1810s, the United States had learned how to prevent Indian hunger, to weaponize food aid, and to deny Indians the power gained by enduring and ignoring scarcity. Meanwhile, people of African descent gained some power by creating white hunger during the Revolutionary War, but more so as formerly enslaved communities, primarily after leaving the new United States and migrating to British colonies in Nova Scotia and then Sierra Leone. After white officials in Sierra Leone realized that colonists' hunger-prevention efforts gave them too much freedom, black colonists lost their hunger-preventing rights. Ultimately, three key behaviors changed and were, in turn, changed by evolving ideas about hunger: food diplomacy, victual warfare, and victual imperialism.

Plays and Amusements Offered for and By the American Military During the Revolutionary War

1978 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-24
Author(s):  
Jared A. Brown
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Revolutionary War ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
American Military ◽  
Continental Congress ◽  
British Military ◽  
The Revolution

In October, 1774, the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, passed a resolution designed to ‘discountenance and discourage every species of extravagance and dissipation’, including the ‘exhibition of shews, plays, and other expensive diversions and entertainments’. The Revolution would begin within six months, and Congress was clearly attempting to prepare Americans for a period of austerity. But if Congress intended to eliminate all theatrical activities for the duration of the hostilities, it could not have failed more completely. Indeed, the American Revolution saw more theatrical activity on American soil than had ever taken place there before. British military officers – who brought with them a strong theatre-going tradition – sponsored lavish performances of plays in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere between 1775 and 1783. In turn, the remarkable number of British theatrical productions stimulated certain American military officials to countenance performances given by American officers for audiences of soldiers and civilians. This may have been illegal, but it boosted morale and it was intended to demonstrate that Americans could compete with the British on any level, including the theatrical.

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