The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution

I read quite a bit of history and am deeply interested in the political role of memory in shaping our ideas about the past. This book is a brilliant exploration of the complex relationship between personal memory, individuals, and public memory. I found it a joy to read and a study of the American Revolution-- as well as the "Tea Party"-- that will change forever the way I think about those events. Too bad the author was so prescient: it was written almost a decade before the present Glen Beck/Sarah Palin Tea Party nonsense and thus does not deal with this later incarnation of the myth. Yet today's utterly self-serving use of the historical metaphor by right-wingers and fundamentalists to protect vested interests merely proves that this book is right on the mark. Terrific read, profound ideas.

.Written long before today's "Tea Party Movement" was dreamed of, this 1999 volume focuses on the revolt that became a lasting symbol of the American spirit.Alfred F. Young's life was spent examining the radicalism of the American Revolution. Small wonder that he was fascinated by the repercussions of the Boston Tea Party, the largest civilian uprising of the American Revolution.In this book he traces American attitudes toward "The Destruction of the Tea" from the day it took place in 1773 up to the tumultuous years of 1830-1835, and from then to the War Between the States.At the moment it occurred, John Adams wrote in his diary, "There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this effort of the Patriots that I greatly admire. The People should never rise, without doing something to be remembered--something notable and striking. This destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I can't but consider it as an Epocha in History."By 1809, John Adams singled out Samuel Adams and John Hancock as "almost buried in oblivion" in a wailing lament about "the extraordinary and unaccountable inattention in our countrymen to the History of their own country."His words reflect the quiet time that occurs after any trauma. By 1800, people were seeking stability and yearned for quiet. The Destruction of the Tea was part of a frightening and disturbing recent past that seemed best forgotten. In a cathartic action after the war, many historic sites and monuments were deliberately destroyed.Slowly, as the years passed, it became all right to talk once more about the horrors of War. Much of this remembering was stimulated by the pension laws of 1818 and especially of 1832, which required veterans to submit, in lieu of written records, "a very full account" of their military service.The shoemaker in this tale was a real man, a poor but daring man, who had served as a boatswain on the evening of the Boston Tea Party, signaling to the marauders when the coast was clear.As the known survivor of that illegal event, Hewes became a kind of folk hero in his old age. His words survive in a few places and bring life and action and color back into the frightening days of the Boston Massacre and the Destruction of the Tea.Later, in the days of the Civil War, tales of the Boston Tea Party joined effigy burning and tarring and feathering in the popular rituals from the Revolution that people could call upon. Today, we find that in a time of uncertainty the Boston Tea Party is again being invoked.Today's so-called Tea Party backs up Young's contention that "the past can be mobilized for partisan purposes," and second, that the inventions of the past (as tradition) may occur as a means of resisting change or of achieving innovations.The original tea party was "bold, wild and extralegal. People could make of it what they will."Kim BurdickStanton, Delaware

Young analyzes the ways the personal and public memory influence our present historical understanding of events like the Boston tea party, the American revolution, and its heroes. He makes clear that what is remembered and celebrated is by no means inevitable, but shaped both by memory and the shifting needs of society. The first half of the book is an account of shoemaker George Hewes life and involvement in the Revolution, while the second unravels the shaping of historical memory. I found the second half to be both more "meaty" and interesting.

Based on the oral and written accounts of the event by its last survivor, George Robert Twelve Hewes, this is as close as any reader can get to the reality of the Boston Tea Party. I would have sworn that I'd reviewed it years ago; it's one of my favorite studies of the American Revolution, with two levels of interest.First, there's the inconvertible evidence that, for many of the participants, the Tea Party and the revolution at large were indeed radical working-class struggles, and not simply the middle-class protest against 'big government' that the right-wing tea-party tax protesters of 2009 assume. Despite what they and "we" have learned in high school history, the Revolution wasn't all about taxation without representation. It was about representation, that's certain, but it was also about LACK of government, slavery, policy toward the western frontier lands, and many other grievances. And it was led, especially in the pre-fighting phase, from the bottom, by artisans and apprentices. The problem with representation, by the way, was primarily over the unfair distribution of it, with cities getting less than their share and 'territories' excluded. You might say that the current distribution of Congressional representation rather accurately replicates what the colonists resented; cities and states with large population are startlingly UNDERREPRESENTED in the Senate and even in the House. Isn't it odd, therefore, that the over-represented and undertaxed "red state" crowd has been duped into this current Fox Noise fandango!The other aspect of the book is the sort that will interest serious students of history as a 'craft'. It concerns the interaction of historical memory with popular imagination. In the material available concerning Hewes, it's uniquely possible to trace the man's changing perception of his own actions and attitudes through the decades following the Revolution. Hewes was an extraordinary figure, fully as interesting as Paul Revere or Ethan Allen, to name two other 'radicals' whose fame has lasted better. Right now, this is a book everyone should be reading.

needed for book club. Arrived quickly and in condition as advertised.

good