Revolutionary Founders

In 21 original essays, leading historians trace the course of the radical impulses at the founding of the American Republic. The text is an essential addition to the understanding of the social conflicts unleashed by the struggle for independence, the Revolution's achievements, and the unfinished agenda it left for future generations to confront.

Alfred F. Young is professor emeritus of history at Northern Illinois University and was a senior research fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Gary B. Nash is professor of history emeritus and director of the National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California.

Ray Raphael is the author of A People’s History of the American Revolution, Founding Myths, and several other books on the nation’s founding. He lives in northern California.

"To begin the world over again" / Alfred F. Young, Ray Raphael, and Gary B. Nash — Revolutions. Ebenezer Mackintosh: Boston's Captain General of the Liberty Tree / Alfred F. Young ; Blacksmith Timothy Bigelow and the Massachusetts revolution of 1774 / Ray Raphael ; Samuel Thompson's war: the career of an American insurgent / T.H. Breen ; Philadelphia's radical caucus that propelled Pennsylvania to independence and democracy / Gary B. Nash ; A world of Paine / Jill Lepore ; Phillis Wheatley: the poet who challenged the American revolutionaries / David Waldstreicher — Wars. "Adventures, dangers and sufferings": the betrayals of Private Joseph Plumb Martin, Continental soldier / Philip Mead ; "The spirit of levelling": James Cleveland, Edward Wright, and the militiamen's struggle for equality in revolutionary Virginia / Michael A. McDonnell ; Mary Perth, Harry Washington, and Moses Wilkinson: Black Methodists who escaped from slavery and founded a nation / Cassandra Pybus ; James Ireland, John Leland, John "Swearing Jack" Waller, and the Baptist campaign for religious freedom in revolutionary Virginia / Jon Butler ; Declaring independence and rebuilding a nation: dragging canoe and the Chickamauga revolution / Colin G. Galloway ; Forgotten heroes of the Revolution: Han Yerry and Tyona Doxtader of the Oneida Indian Nation / James Kirby Martin — The promise of the Revolution. "Satan, Smith, Shattuck, and Shays": the people's leaders in the Massachusetts regulation of 1786 / Gregory Nobles ; William Findley, David Bradford, and the Pennsylvania regulation of 1794 / Terry Bouton ; The new Jerusalem: Herman Husband's egalitarian alternative to the United States Constitution / Wythe Holt ; The battle against patriarchy that Abigail Adams won / Woody Holton ; America's Mary Wollstonecraft: Judith Sargent Murray's case for the equal rights of women / Sheila Skemp ; Prince Hall, Richard Allen, and Daniel Coker: revolutionary Black founders, revolutionary Black communities / Richard S. Newman ; Richard and Judith Randolph, St. George Tucker, George Wythe, Syphax Brown, and Hercules White: racial equality and the snares of prejudice / Melvin Patrick Ely ; "Every man should have property": Robert Coram and the American Revolution's legacy of economic populism / Seth Cotlar ; Thomas Greenleaf: printers and the struggle for democratic politics and freedom of the press / Jeffrey L. Pasley ; The plough-jogger: Jedediah Peck and the democratic revolution / Alan Taylor — Afterword / Eric Foner