How much can the work of one historian impact how we view and study the American Revolution?
We investigate the answer to this question by exploring the life and work of Pauline Maier, a historian who spent her life researching and investigating the American Revolution. Over the course of her lifetime, Maier wrote four important books about the American Revolution: From Resistance to Revolution, The Old Revolutionaries, American Scripture, and Ratification.
Mary Beth Norton, Joanne Freeman, Todd Estes, and Lindsay Chervinsky join us as we journey through Maier’s body of work to better understand the American Revolution and how one historian can impact how we view and study history.
About the Series
The mission of episodes in the Doing History: To the Revolution series, is to ask not just “what is the history of the American Revolution?” but “what are the histories of the American Revolution?”
The Doing History series explores early American history and how historians work. It’s produced by the Omohundro Institute.
Be sure to check out Doing History season 1, Doing History: How Historians Work.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Each episode features a conversation with a historian who helps us shed light on important people and events in early American history.
Ben Franklin’s World is a production of the Omohundro Institute.
Episode Summary
Mary Beth Norton, Joanne Freeman, Todd Estes, and Lindsay Chervinsky join us as we journey through Pauline Maier’s body of work to better understand the American Revolution and how one historian can impact how we view and study history.
Pauline Maier spent her life researching and investigating the American Revolution and over the course of her lifetime, she wrote four influential books about it: From Resistance to Revolution, The Old Revolutionaries, American Scripture, and Ratification.
What You’ll Discover
- What it was like to study early American history in the 1960s
- How we understood the American Revolution in the 1960s
- Crowd action and the American Revolution
- Sons of Liberty
- Samuel Adams
- Legacy of the American Revolution
- Pauline Maier
- American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
- How we understand the drafting of the Declaration of Independence
- The “other” declarations
- The Declaration of Independence as a sacred text
- History of the Constitution ratification debates
- Why we should look at ratification as a simultaneous, multi-state process
- The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Ratification
- The “long” American Revolution
- Washington’s use of his cabinet
- The impact one historian’s work can have on how we understand the American Revolution
Links to People, Places, and Publications
- Mary Beth Norton
- Joanne Freeman
- Todd Estes
- Lindsay Chervinsky
- Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776
- Pauline Maier, The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams</em
- Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
- Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788
- Mary Beth Norton, The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774-1789
- Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800
- Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
- John C. Miller, Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda
- George Rude, The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848
- Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic
- Joanne Freeman, The Essential Hamilton: Letters & Other Writings
- Joanne Freeman, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
- Todd Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of Early American Political Culture
- Robert Rutland, The Ordeal of the Constitution
- Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution
- SMU Center for Presidential History
- Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideals
- Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776
- Memorials: “Pauline Maier”
- Douglas Martin, “Pauline Maier, Historian Who Described Jefferson as ‘Overated,” Dies at 75,” The New York Times, August 13, 2013
- Ray Raphael, “What Have We Learned from Pauline Maier,” History News Network, December 9, 2013
- C-SPAN, Book TV, “In Depth with Pauline Maier,” March 6, 2011
Sponsor Links
- Omohundro Institute
- William and Mary Quarterly
- OI Reader App
- William and Mary Quarterly-Journal of the Early Republic joint issue on the American Revolution special discount
Complementary Episodes
• Episode 007: Sara Georgini, John Adams and the Adams Papers Editorial Project
• Episode 031: Benjamin Franklin and the Papers of Benjamin Franklin Editorial Project
• Episode 074: Mary Wigge, Martha Washington
• Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man
• Episode 112: Mary Beth North, The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 123: Revolutionary Allegiances
• Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft
• Episode 143: Michael Klarman, The making of the United States Constitution
• Episode 152: Bernard Bailyn, Origins of the American Revolution
Questions, Comments, Suggestions
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