Wednesday June 28, 2006, 6pm
at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
1300 Locust Street.
215-732-6200, X214
The American Revolution was a child of the Enlightenment. Although it started as a tax revolt, through the efforts of men like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine it became a full blown revolution for political equality. What were the boundaries of that equality, and in what ways did the rhetoric of men like Paine set the bar for subsequent expansions of rights throughout the following century? In addition to the founding of the country we will look at the first revolt against the new republic and the struggle to free African Americans from slavery before the civil war.
Our speakers are:
* Jack Fruchtman, author of Atlantic Cousins: Benjamin Franklin and His Visionary Friends and Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom, is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program in Law and American civilization at Maryland's Towson University. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine lived when wealth and privilege controlled society and politics, and when social hierarchy presumed that only a few people secretly controlled all decisions. Franklin was a devoted subject of the empire and a slaveholder until he finally realized that separation from England and abolition of slavery were keys to a new democratic orders. Meantime, Paine, born in England but an American to the core by age 37 when he moved to Philadelphia became a revolutionary. Through the vision of both men, we can see how the struggle for political and social equality was begun so long ago.
* William Hogeland is author of The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty. The resistance movement in Western Pennsylvania was thousands strong in 1794, marching in militia discipline against the skeletal U.S. Army, flying a new flag of western independence, and threatening secession and civil war. At issue was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's entire program of national finance, which the rebels saw as betraying Thomas Paine's revolutionary spirit by curtailing equal access to economic and political opportunity, enriching financiers at the direct expense of ordinary people. Urged by Hamilton to crush the rebels President Washington led 13,000 troops over the Appalachians to subject an entire region to martial law, suspension of civil liberties, and harsh, warrantless punishment. William Hogeland has published in numerous print and online periodicals, including the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, and Slate.
* Lorene Cary is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, and has received both the Philadelphia Award and a Philadelphia Historical Society Founder's Medal for History in Culture. She decided to highlight some lesser-known stories in her new book Free!: Great Escapes from Slavery on the Underground Railroad. A Philadelphia native and founder of the North Philadelphia-based arts organization Art Sanctuary, Cary also wrote the acclaimed Underground Railroad novel, The Price of a Child. Lorene gathered records of documented escapes in Philadelphia, most coming from the records of William Still, who was co-chair of the Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Committee for the Abolition of Slavery. Using Still's sources, Cary has been able to breathe life into dry narratives, and she offers a rare glimpse at some of the many men, women and children who created ingenious and daring plans to reach freedom.