Founding Fathers

I was recently asked by my insurance saleman to recommend some good books on the founding fathers. I know many wonderful works on Washington, Madison, Adams, etc. have been published in the last few years, many of which I haven't yet read, and was hoping for some help. I've read many reveiws of these books, but want to make sure I give him titles that are accessible to non-scholars. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Jacquelyn Miller
History Department
Seattle University
Broadway and Madison
Seattle, WA 98122
jcmiller@seattleu.edu
(206) 296-5446

Dear Jacquelyn Miller and IEAHCNetters,

You asked about "good books on the founding fathers" for your insurance salesman. Try John E. Ferling, _The First of Men: A Life of George Washington_ (Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1988). I found it very readable and complete (for a one-volume 500-page treatment). I know Ferling has recently written a biography of John Adams, but I can't say anything about it since I haven't read it yet. Good luck (and I hope you get a break on your insurance!).

Dave Hsiung
Juniata College
hsiung@juniata.edu

>----------
>From: Jacquelyn C. Miller[SMTP:jcmiller@seattleu.edu]
>Sent: Friday, October 11, 1996 10:00 AM
>To: Multiple recipients of list IEAHCNET
>Subject: Founding Fathers
>
>I was recently asked by my insurance saleman to recommend some good books
>on the founding fathers. I know many wonderful works on Washington,
>Madison, Adams, etc. have been published in the last few years, many of
>which I haven't yet read, and was hoping for some help. I've read many
>reveiws of these books, but want to make sure I give him titles that are
>accessible to non-scholars. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
>
>Jacquelyn Miller
>History Department
>Seattle University
>Broadway and Madison
>Seattle, WA 98122
>jcmiller@seattleu.edu
>(206) 296-5446

Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fisher is a fine and exciting book, easily accessible to the non-scholar but full of interesting stuff about Revere and the many founding parents he had contact with.

Jeffrey H. Richards, English
Old Dominion University

Vikki J. Vickers
University of Missouri--Columbia

"I am the master of my fate/ I am the captain of my soul" (Henley)

On Fri, 11 Oct 1996, Jacquelyn C. Miller wrote:

> I was recently asked by my insurance saleman to recommend some good books
> on the founding fathers. I know many wonderful works on Washington,
> Madison, Adams, etc. have been published in the last few years, many of
> which I haven't yet read, and was hoping for some help. I've read many
> reveiws of these books, but want to make sure I give him titles that are
> accessible to non-scholars. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
>
> Jacquelyn Miller
> History Department
> Seattle University
> Broadway and Madison
> Seattle, WA 98122
> jcmiller@seattleu.edu
> (206) 296-5446
>

I hate the term "Founding Fathers." I recommend Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic, and Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters. My father, a former dock worker, read and enjoyed both. Good luck, Michael B

Reply Separator _
Author: H-NET/IEAHC Electronic Association in Early American Studies <IEAHCNET@h-net.msu.edu> at INTERNET
Date: 10/11/96 11:50 AM

I was recently asked by my insurance saleman to recommend some good books on the founding fathers. I know many wonderful works on Washington, Madison, Adams, etc. have been published in the last few years, many of which I haven't yet read, and was hoping for some help. I've read many reveiws of these books, but want to make sure I give him titles that are accessible to non-scholars. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Jacquelyn Miller
History Department
Seattle University
Broadway and Madison
Seattle, WA 98122
jcmiller@seattleu.edu
(206) 296-5446

I'm very fond of Sheila Skemp's book BENJAMIN AND WILLIAM FRANKLIN: FATHER AND SON, PATRIOT AND LOYALIST. It raises interesting issues in a way that should be accessible to a general reader. I haven't taught it to students yet, but will this coming spring.

Patricia Tracy
Williams College

I'd recommend Noble E. Cunningham, Jr.'s biography of Thomas Jefferson, In Pursuit of Reason. It's a well-written one-volume treatment of Jefferson's life suitable for scholars and non-scholars.

Janice Durbin-Dodd
University of Missouri-Columbia

John Ferling's recent biography of John Adams would be a great choice for a scholar or non-scholar. Although it does not give the detail that Page Smith's two volume set does, it is very accessible for most readers.

Jay Hester
University of Missouri-Columbia

Jay Hester

Thanks for the suggestions. I really appreciate your taking the time to respond. Jacquelyn

Jacquelyn Miller
History Department
Seattle University
Broadway and Madison
Seattle, WA 98122
jcmiller@seattleu.edu
(206) 296-5446

"Founding Era" certainly seems to be a better term for the period, although the enquirer probably specifically wants to read about political men. At any rate, I would weigh in with Edith Gelles' marvelous study entitled _Portia:The World of Abigail Adams_ (Indiana, 1992) for a wonderful portrait of late 18th C. life, family, and politics.

Gail S. Murray Dept. Of History
Rhodes College Memphis, TN 38112
murray @rhodes.edu

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

I thought subscribers might be interested in what to me are some very frustrating discussions over on two other lists (Doug Deal made an effort to introduce the ECONHIST thread here about a week ago). The "Founding Fathers" are being invoked with obviously little awareness of the literature of the past three decades in history. I hear these sorts of assumptions from my students all the time often with "but my economics professor said" or "but my political science professor said" attached to them. And you certainly hear this from politicians. I am finding myself on these lists speaking for the history profession in general (though Doug has now surfaced on econhist, fortunately). Suggesting that they read the literature -- for example, Wood, Bailyn, Greene, Appleby, Pocock, Pole, Kenyon, go back and read Wood again, the WMQ, McCoy, etc. etc. etc. -- doesn't quite work on thse lists, because obviously no one has the time to do it. Let me ask: how do others on this list respond to the following assertions when encountered with students, or neighbors, or in the newspaper, or from a politician?

1. The "Founding Fathers" said ..... (follolwed by whatever it is the speaker believes to be fundamental about America). If someone is going to use that phrase (I don't), exactly who should they be referring to? My favorite is a sentence that begins "The Founding Fathers" and ends "the second amendment". They do not seem to understand that whoever the "Founding Fathers" were, I guess you have to include the participants in the Constitutional Convention, and they explicitly rejected the suggestion of ANY Bill of Rights in the document. I often respond, the so-called Founding Fathers did not agree on a lot, except that they disagreed. Would others here have a better/ different response?
2. The stranglehold of Madison's Federalist X. It is EVERYWHERE. (Thanks, Mr. Beard.) Everything you ever wanted to know about the essence of the nation or the "true" meaning of the Constitution is right there in Federalist X.
3. The 2nd Amendment. My own interpretation is that there were several versions of this amendment to be considered; that in general the proponents were not at the Constitutional Convention but were in Shays' Rebellion, the Carlisle Riots, etc. It is also my understanding that Washington detested the whole idea; and that whatever ambiguity the amendment may have had, Washington put an end to THAT with his response to the Whiskey Rebellion. Madison was not in favor of the Bill of Rights at all -- but his constituents in Virginia made him promise to support one; consequently he decided to make sure it was a list he could support by authoring the draft. And finally it is my understanding that he deliberately toned down the amendment to tilt it toward "a well-regulated militia" and away from local self-defense against a distant government (i.e., the federal government) let alone individual self-protection. (I rather like the amendment that got away, the one proposed by Pennsylvanians that would have explicitly permitted poaching. But then, the Pennsylvanians had some marvelous ideas for what should be in a constitution -- a little regional chauvenism here.) How would this quick interpretation fit with what would be considered the "generally-accepted" scholarship in the area today BY HISTORIANS -- NOT LEGAL SCHOLARS (who I believe remain hogbound to a scholarly literature derived from British legal and economic history, and the interpretations of the turn of this century).
4. This is cropping up all over the place. As several economists (and let me first assure you they are a MINORITY in the economics profession; it's just that they're a loud minority) have phrased it: government=coercion=corruption and free markets=freedom. Kind of makes policy decisions easy, doesn't it? Never mind the theoretical validity of that construction. The point here is that they keep invoking the "Founding Fathers". Sigh. Thomas Jefferson, in particular, is dragged in as someone who believed government to be inherently "evil", and by definition the less the better. This is a take-no-prisoners argument. They mean EVIl in any way, shape or form. Doug Deal broached this a couple of weeks ago, but out of the context of the debate over there I'm not sure the list understood the issue: Would the so-called "Founding Fathers" -- pick a definition -- have believed that by definition government=coercion? That is, government IS force, and the purpose of government is to force people to do what they don't want to do. (Hence, by definition it is immoral -- that is the tone of the thread).

Okay. I have deliberately introduced a lot, because I am frankly tired of having these discussions on two lists where they don't know much at all about the subject -- econhist is particularly frustrating, because it's me and Doug Deal vs. at least one very high-powered economist.
Pick a topic. What do you think of all this?

• Mary Schweitzer

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

Professor Schweitzer is experiencing a problem many of us encounter when dealing with social scientists in general and economists in particular. Fundamentally, I suspect that the essence is that social scientists work from reductionist views of human nature in order to discover "rules," "laws," and "precedents" for presentist ideological requirements.
Specifically I'd suggest sending on econhist Jack P. Greene's brilliant discussion on the complexities of human nature, as seen by recent historians, from his -Reinterpretation of the American Revolution- (1968), pp. 17-18. Maybe that would stir up their views on FED X, which is nice, if you know how to read Whig thought.

Richard P. Gildrie