Founding Myths

by Ray Raphael

  For sin is the cause of this,

  We must not take it then amiss,

  Wan’t it for our polluted tongues,

  This cruel war would ne’er begun.

  We should hear no fife and drum,

  Nor training bands would never come:

  Should we go on our sinful course,

  Times will grow on us worse and worse.

  Then gracious GOD now cause to cease,

  This bloody war and give us peace!

  And down our streets send plenty then

  With hearts as one we’ll say Amen!18

  Not only did the AP program present the Marblehead woodcut out of context, but it also erred by assuming the image was descriptive rather than normative. This is a common mistake: images and words can have many purposes, and reporting is only one. They can praise or condemn, ridicule or scold, and often they are meant to cajole. Not understanding the genre or the intent, we cannot draw inferences from an isolated document—yet that is exactly what the AP asked students to do. Most likely, test takers followed the errant path the test makers cleared for them and assumed the image was presented as a true representation of real women. Presented with evidence this scanty, students are not merely encouraged but forced to jump to conclusions. They have no choice but to practice hasty history.

  The example might be extreme, but the problem is common. Since teaching to the test requires a fast-moving curriculum, document-based lessons must be brief. On any given subject, students are presented with minimal evidence and little context with which to evaluate that evidence. On the basis of this small sample they are asked to make snap judgments, undermining the very intent of document-based learning.

  Thinking historically. This is not to say we shouldn’t teach with documents. To reveal mythologies for what they are, we do need to start by evaluating sources. The Common Core Standards are on to this, and DBQs can be of great service. But how do we evaluate sources?19 And how do we weave these strands of evidence into historical narratives? We need standards for our standards.

  Mythologies can thrive only when we don’t think clearly about how we know—and don’t know—the past. We can dispel myths one by one, as I do in this book, but we can also create a climate of learning hostile to the development of attractive but misleading narratives. We can learn the art of “historical thinking,” as educators and historians now say. But to practice and teach historical thinking—and that is the aim of the Common Core—we must first accept our limits and proceed from there. By approaching the past cautiously rather than hastily, we can attack mythologies at the roots.

  Learning to think historically, in my mind, involves five basic tenets that build on each other:

  (1)We don’t know the past. As historian Richard White puts it, “Any good history begins in strangeness. The past should not be comfortable. The past should not be a familiar echo of the present.” Because of differences in time, circumstance, and perspective, we can never create a one-to-one correspondence between the actual past and the narrative we use to represent it.

  This is not a difficult lesson to convey. In fifth grade, or even earlier, a teacher can arrange to video some event the students all witness or experience. A month or two later, students are asked very specific questions about this event, such as how many people there were, the exact time, and so on. Responses will likely differ, but which of the answers are wrong and which correct? The video is played back, a contemporaneous answer book, and students learn that memory can play tricks with history. Then comes the kicker. A month or two after another shared event, students are asked to respond once again to specific questions. This time, though, there is no video to determine who is correct. What to do now? What sorts of contemporaneous documents might we look to for answers? Did anybody keep a journal at that moment? Interview participants? Issue reports at the time? Welcome to the practice of history.

  (2)While no constructed narrative can claim to be “true,” some are clearly better than others. We do have standards: all claims to historical authenticity must conform to the available evidence from the times. We observe the past through spotty remnants. While these will never tell the whole story, they can shape its parameters.

  Again, this is easily taught even at the elementary level. Lay out some facts, then weave two or more narratives around those facts. To make one story interesting, bend a fact or two. Weave another narrative, perhaps more mundane, that conforms to all the facts presented. Then weave a third story, from a slightly different perspective, that also conforms to the facts. Students will see that one story is demonstrably wrong, even if they can’t say for sure that either of the others is a true representation of what actually happened.

  (3)Things might have happened differently. Humans are historical agents. They make decisions and take actions, not fully knowing how things would turn out. To grasp this, we need to disregard all that has occurred since and view matters in light of the circumstances at a specific point in time, using only the information available to people then as they pondered their options and tugged with each other to produce desired outcomes. Our past was their present. Before it was history it was life in the moment, one thing after the next, the future uncertain.

  Simulated debates can demonstrate that historical outcomes are not fixed. People do make decisions; they act one way or another. Debating any hot topic from the past, with time and circumstance clearly established and all arguments based on later happenings strictly banned, will reveal the contingency of history.

  (4)Things didn’t happen differently. They happened the way they happened. After we come to realize that multiple options were possible, we need to go one step further and ask, “Why wasn’t it otherwise?” If we don’t pose this question, history will remain incomprehensible. The political processes that steered history on the course it took need to be viewed carefully and in sequence. History happened when it happened. We need to see how decisions made and actions taken, day by day, influenced subsequent events, leading to new sets of contingencies and opening some options while closing others. We watch history unfold, not in real time but as closely to it as we can.

  Here, unfortunately, there are no quick and easy methods. Teachers and students, authors and readers have no choice but to engage each subject on its own terms. Here is the daily grind of history, and it requires scrutiny and patience. Since sequencing is key, all events must be viewed strictly in the context of when they happened. If we try to short-circuit time to prove some point, we will likely get the story wrong.

  (5)Historical inquiry never ceases. New evidence, or new perspectives on old evidence, can produce new insights and new conclusions. Part and parcel of every document-based lesson should be: “What related questions might we ask to clarify matters? What other types of sources might we seek to deepen our inquiry and/or test our hypotheses?” Historical thinking is not limited to answering questions; we must also learn to ask questions that might reveal what has been hidden.

  Following this path, and asking questions few have thought to pose, mythologies begin to wither. For example:

  •During the Revolutionary Era, when and where did both political and military authority first transfer from British officials to colonials? This is a logical question to ask for any revolution, but it is not often posed for this one. If it were, those sleepy-eyed farmers whom Paul Revere allegedly awoke would be restored to their place in history.

  •In 1777, Britain lost a force of some eight thousand in its failed Hudson River expedition. Four years later it lost a similar number at Yorktown, but it still had forty thousand troops in North America and the West Indies stationed in nearly impenetrable strongholds. Why did one defeat trigger the end of the war, while the other did not? Posing this question requires us to examine Britain’s struggles to maintain its vast empire, challenged on many fronts by other world powers. The question
itself—again quite logical but rarely asked—would lead to an expanded look at the end of the war and lay to rest the David-bested-Goliath mythology surrounding Yorktown.

  •At Valley Forge soldiers suffered in the cold. Did they suffer from the cold during other winters as well? Was Valley Forge in fact the coldest? These are questions curious fifth graders might ask but textbooks don’t. If they did, we would hear about Morristown as well, and soldiers who mutinied. The Valley Forge story would not disappear, but its triumphalism would be tempered. We would see that the everyday problems faced by soldiers in the Continental Army were not solved by the winter at Valley Forge.

  The questions continue, or at least they should. That’s the only way we can clear the air. We might not learn exactly how it was in Revolutionary times, but we can free the people who lived back then from shackles placed upon them by later generations.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As usual, I thank my wife, Marie Raphael, for sharing her ideas, conjuring key phrases, and editing portions of the manuscript. Gilles Carter gave the original work a careful reading and offered many useful suggestions. Marc Favreau and Cathy Dexter gave excellent editorial assistance. Anthony Arnove, Jeff Pasley, Howard Zinn, and Hugh Van Dusen nurtured the idea in its formative stages, and Jeff Kleinman persuaded me to broaden the scope. Several scholars commented on portions of the manuscript pertaining to their fields of research: Al Young, Pauline Maier, Gary Nash, Colin Calloway, James Merrell, Andrew Burstein, and Cassandra Pybus. I hope I have done justice to their suggestions; my own views are not always the same as theirs. Others gave friendly words of advice or encouragement: Mike McDonnell, Eric Foner, David Hackett Fischer, and Gary Kornblith. David McCullough provided a key reference. Gilles Carter helped locate and identify pictures, as did Jessica Reed from the Granger Collection, while John Angus put the artwork together. I thank Jack Bareilles, Gayle Olson-Raymer, and Delores McBroome for involving teachers in the project. My research would not have been possible without assistance from Julia Graham and the Interlibrary Loan Department of Humboldt State University.

  NOTES

  Introduction: Inventing a Past

  1.For national narratives in other nations, see Stefan Berger, ed., Writing the Nation: A Global Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

  2.Although Trumbull’s painting actually depicts the presentation of the Declaration to Congress by a five-man committee, which occurred on June 28, the date “July 4, 1776” was added to the title when it was placed in the Capitol Rotunda, giving the impression that the scene depicted the signing of the document, which supposedly occurred on that date. For when the Declaration of Independence was actually signed, see chapter 15.

  3.Thomson quotations cited in Benjamin Rush to John Adams, February 12, 1812, The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–1813, John A. Schutz and Douglas Adair, eds. (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1966), 210; Benjamin Rush, Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, George W. Corner, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), 155, cited in J. Edwin Hendricks, Charles Thomson and the Making of a New Nation, 1729–1824 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1979), 189. Thomson extended his idea of voluntary censorship to others: on one occasion, he urged David Ramsay, who was writing a history of the Revolution, to delete a story that was “too low for history” and to change some phrases “which did not please” and seemed “too common to comport with the dignity of history” (Hendricks, Charles Thomson, 164).

  4.Noah Webster, A Collection of Essays and Fugitive Writings (Boston: I. Thomas and E.T. Andrews, 1790; reprint edition, Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1977), 23.

  5.The text that includes virtually all of the tales is Joy Hakim’s A History of US (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). This is no accident, for Hakim, in undertaking the task of making history fun, has chosen stories for their appeal rather than their veracity. In her keen desire to make history inclusive, however, she has managed to tell the story of African Americans and Native Americans at the time of our nation’s founding much more extensively and accurately than in most other texts.

  6.I do not mean, however, to include professional scholars within the “we” who still take these tales at face value and do whatever it takes to promote a sense of belonging. Some scholars have done an excellent job in deconstructing the traditional stories, and I draw on their work liberally, but I also extend their scope by examining not just one tale at a time but the entire rubric. We are dealing here not just with the ear of the elephant or its tail, but with the creature itself. The telling of history has been seriously skewed—more so, I think, than even most scholars have imagined.

  7.I use the term “patriots” with some hesitation. At the time, loyalists as well as rebels would have considered themselves “patriots,” for they too thought they were defending their country. But since the term has long denoted a particular group—those who opposed British policies and eventually the British army—I cede to common usage and call the rebels “patriots.”

  8.Ray Raphael, The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord (New York: The New Press, 2002), 168.

  1: Paul Revere’s Ride

  1.David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 331. This chapter draws extensively on Fischer’s research.

  2.The poem is reprinted in Edmund S. Morgan, ed., Paul Revere’s Three Accounts of His Famous Ride (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1961).

  3.Copley’s portrait, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is dated 1768–1770.

  4.William E. Lincoln, ed., The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, with an Appendix Containing the Proceedings of the County Conventions (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 148.

  5.Morgan, Paul Revere’s Three Accounts, np.

  6.Pennsylvania Gazette, June 7, 1775. Later in his article Gordon mentioned Revere by name, but only as a witness to the firing of the first shots at Lexington.

  7.William Gordon, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969; first published in 1788), 1: 477.

  8.David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (Philadelphia: R. Aitken and Son, 1789; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1990), 1: 187.

  9.John Marshall, The Life of George Washington (New York: AMS Press, 1969; first published 1804–1807), 2: 211.

  10.Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations (Boston: E. Larkin, 1805; reprinted by Liberty Classics in 1988), 1: 184. Warren’s book has been transcribed for the Internet by Richard Seltzer, 2002, at www.samizdat.com/warren/.

  11.Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 328.

  12.Morgan, Paul Revere’s Three Accounts, np.

  13.Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 329.

  14.Freeman Hunt, American Anecdotes: Original and Select (Boston: Putnam and Hunt, 1830).

  15.Morgan, Paul Revere’s Three Accounts, np.

  16.Richard Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1903; reprint edition, Da Capo Press, 1970; first published in 1849), 57–61.

  17.Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851), 1: 523.

  18.George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the Continent (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1879; first published 1834–1874), 4: 517.

  19.Bancroft and Lossing wrote approximately 1,500 pages each on the Revolution. Bancroft, who spins a coherent narrative, weaves in about one good ministory per page, while Lossing, who uses an entirely anecd
otal approach, works in several per page. Lossing published 1,095 visual images, including several hundred portraits and signatures of famous revolutionaries, but he offered no image of Revere or his ride. For the treatment of history-as-anecdote in the antebellum nineteenth century, see chapter 15.

  20.Although Longfellow believed strongly in abolitionism—in 1842 he published a book, Poems on Slavery, that reflected his abolitionist sentiments—he did not actively participate in any of the reform movements of the mid–nineteenth century. Instead of engaging with others toward common goals, he wrote poems and told stories with featured protagonists.

  21.Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 90–112, 124–148.

  22.Edward Eggleston, A History of the United States and Its People, for the Use of Schools (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888), 168.

  23.Reuben Post Halleck, History of Our Country, for Higher Grades (New York: American Book Co., 1923), 179.

  24.Ruth West and Willis Mason West, The Story of Our Country (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1935), 152; Gertrude Hartman, America: Land of Freedom (Boston: D.C. Heath and Co., 1946), 154–155.

  25.John Fiske, The American Revolution (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1891), 1:121. For Fiske as “the Bancroft of his generation,” see Michael Kraus and Davis D. Joyce, The Writing of American History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 181.

  26.Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 337.

  27.Esther Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942); Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 338.