MosesWrites
American Foundations
For the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence I was given the tremendous opportunity by the US Consulate in Shanghai to deliver a series of five lectures at its Shanghai American Center.
I’m very thankful to have had that forum for reflection after many years thinking about the origins and implications of what became the United States of America. I express my deepest appreciation to the Consul General and all of those who supported this endeavor, from invitation to conception to execution.
Here I will share the slides I created for the talks, which, per Consular policy, were not recorded, while also noting that my views in no way reflect those of the Shanghai Consul General nor the Department of State or US Government. They’re entirely my own.
The slide decks contain images, timelines, text, and bibliographies—and in some cases videos. Even without my own words to accompany them (I didn’t write scripts for any of the talks, I just made mental outlines and followed the slides) I hope an attentive review will give some sense of the overall arguments I’m making. If nothing else, the further readings can enlighten beyond my own power to do so.
Lecture 1 (Friday 13 March)
Acts of Faith in New England: John Winthrop’s sermon aboard the Arabella, “A Model of Christian Charity;” Anne Bradstreet, “Verses upon the Burning of our House”
Lecture 2 (Friday 3 April)
Enlightened Ambitions: Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography; Samsum Occom, “Narrative;” Phillis Wheatley, “On Virtue”
Lecture 3 (Friday 8 May)
Rebellion: Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence
Lecture 4 (Friday 12 June)
The Future of a Nation: George Washington’s “Farewell Address;” Seneca Chiefs to George Washington (December 1790)
Lecture 5 (Friday 28 August)
A New Birth of Freedom: Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July;” Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address”
Scholarship exists as a collective endeavor across generations. While sometimes solitary pursuit in the archives has brought feelings of isolation and despair, the ability to gain from the published works and lectures of others provides renewal and perspective and the ability to frame broader narratives from even the narrowest of sources.
In crafting these lectures I owe innumerable debts but hope to capture a small share of my gratitude. An early conversation with Professor Emeritus Alan Taylor of the University of Virginia, as generous and brilliant as he is humble, proved essential and clarifying. So too an exchange with Professor Laura Leibman of Princeton University, one of my earliest mentors and supporters since my time at Reed, helped me to believe I was on the right track (and also years introduced me to Sacvan Bercovitch, a wonderful human and brilliant scholar). Midway through, encouragement from Professor Emeritus Anthony Grafton of Princeton University gave me the confidence to keep going.
Throughout, good exchanges with Professor Richard Payne of the University of Chicago, and Professor Jacob Soll of the University of Southern California, sustained me with erudition and good humor in equal measure. The same is true of an inspiring conversation back in March, and continued exchanges, with my dear friend since graduate school, Professor Nurfadzilah Yahaya of Yale University. Scott Ellsworth of the University of Michigan and a friend of nearly three decades likewise offered encouragement and his recently published Midnight on the Potomac proved pivotal for my final talk.
Email exchanges however brief with other historians allowed me a sense of reconnection with a scholarly community I opted not to join, viz. Professors David Armitage, Joyce Chaplin, and Drew Faust at Harvard.
Dael Norwood, with whom I started graduate school and collaborated often during those years, now of the University of Delaware, kindly gave quick yet incisive feedback on the bibliography for my final presentation as I’ve read far, far less widely in nineteenth and twentieth century history.
I still draw on the rigor and care shared by the late David Harris Sacks at Reed College, who gave one of the most demanding seminars I’ve ever taken. David didn’t suffer fools and I appreciate that he didn’t count me as such as those for whom he cared, he remained forever and fiercely loyal. Then in graduate school, I gained immensely from seminars with and advice from Tony Grafton along with Professors Philip Morgan, now of The Johns Hopkins University, Dame Linda Colley, Sean Wilentz, Peter Lake now of Vanderbilt University, Hendrik Hartog, and Robert Darnton, lately of Harvard University.
All I've shared remains my own and they have no responsibility for my work.
Above all I will like to have shared these talks in honor of the late Princeton University Professor John Murrin, of blessed memory. From John’s wisdom I gained a sense of connection to a legacy of early American history that reaches through Edmund Morgan and Barnard Bailyn to Samuel Elliot Morrison and the greats beyond.