A Cultural History of the American Revolution: Painting, Music, Literature, an dthe Theater in the Colonies and the United States from the Treaty of Paris to the Inaugeration of George Washington, 1763-1789, by Kenneth Silverman
Thomas Crowell Company, 1976
607 pages plus Sources, Notes, Index, and 53 illustrations
Library: 973.3 SIL
Description
Amid a host of Bicentennial books, this one stands out as unique: It is the first comprehensive cultural history of the revolutionary period, from 1763, when peace returned to the colonies with the ending of the French and Indian War, to 1789, when the newly united States inaugerated GEorge Washington as their first president.
It has not been recognized before that this was a quarter-century of surprising cultural progress as well as political revolution. In this short span, America produced its first novel, first epic poems, first composer, first professionally acted friend, first actor and dancer, its first important painters, sculptor, musical-instrument makers, engravers, museums-most of the elements, indeed, that define modern metropolitan cultural life.
Tracing the growth of American painting, music, literature, and the theatre against and around the more familiar contours of political and nilitary history, Kenneth Silverman has produced a text immensely rich in ideas and information.
He vividly conveys the exuberance of the era, integrating such well-known historical events as the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Battle of Bunker's Hill, the Siege of Yorktown, and the struggle to draft and ratify the Constitution with such unfamiliar cultural events as the destruction of the New York theatre by the Sons of Liberty, the first American performance of Handel's Messiah, the production of plays at Valley Forge and other army camps, the mounting of public spectacles and parades, the post-war immigration of European painters and musicians to America, and the passage of copyright laws.
While describing the growth of American culture in the midst of war, the book unfolds the careers and interprets the works of dozens of painters, poets, musicians, playwrights, and other artists: Benjamin West, the Pennsylvania Quaker who founded an American school in London and revolutionized the painting of historical objects; his pupil John Trumbull, who sought to document the war on canvas, John Singleton Copley, the most gifted portraitist in America, who married into the family of one of Boston's largest tea importers; Charles Wilson Peale, now fighting under Washington, now painting him, now offering him a special showing of "moving pictures"; Philip Frenau, inveighing in verse against Gage and Cornwallis but against his countrymen as well; David Douglas and Lewis Hallam, Jr., managers of the peripatetic American Company, eternally trying to work around the anti-theatre laws; the singing master (and later garbage collector) William Billings, whose New England Psalm-Singer initiated a flood of works by native American composers.
These are only a few of the literally thousands of personalities, works and events in this remarkable and entertaining history of the first flowering of American culture. A product of much original research, it is a book not only for the Bicentennial year, but for many seasons.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Book One: Peace and Learning
Calendar for February 1763-August 1770
Part 1: Culture in British America between the Treaty of Paris and the Stamp Act: 1763-1765
1. Commencement: 1763
2. The Art World
3. Musical life
4. The Literary Scene
5. The Theatre
Part Two: Demonstrations-American Culture 1765-1770
6. Stamp Act Protests: August-December 1765
7. Excursus: Whig Sentinentalim
8. Benjamin West's American School in London: June 1763-early 1766
Charles Wilson Peale flees to New England: Summer 1765
10. Copley's Boy with Squirrel: Fall 1765
11. Douglass' New Troupe in Charleston: October 25-November 4, 1765
12. Repeal of the Stamp Act: January-May 1766
13. Hopkinson and Peale in London: July 1766-Spring 1767
14. Success of Boy with Squirrel: August 1766
15. Opening of the Southwark Theatre: November 1766; the first American actor, the first Americn play, The Prince of Parthia, April 24, 1767
16. The Townshend Acts: June 176; Liberty Songs and Poems: 1768-69
17. West's Agrippana; Peale's Pitt; c. Spring 1767-spring 1769
18. Arrival of John Henry: August 1767; the Virginia Company of Comedians; The American Company thwarted again in Charleston: August 1769
19. British Troops in Boston: October 1768-March 1770
20. Repeal of the Townshend Acts: April 1770; Statue of King GEorge Raised in New York: August 23, 1770
Book Two: Arts and Arms
Calendar for September 1770-December 1783
Part 1: Culture in British America during the 'Quuiet Period', 1770-1773
21. Commenvement: 1770
22. The Art World
23. Musical life
24. The Literary scene
25. The theatre
Part 2: Battles-American Culture 1773-1783
26. The Tea Act and the Boston Port Bill: May 1773-September 1774
27. Copley in Europe: July 1774- March 1775
28. The First Continental Congress: September-October 1774
29. Lexington, Concord, Bunker's Hill: April-June 1775
30. The Siege of Boston: July 1775-March 1776
31. Outside Boston: Spring 1774-Spring 1776
32. The Second Continental Congress Declares Independence: Fall 1775-Summer 1776
33. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania: Summer 1776-Winter 1777-78
34. Excursus: Music in the Army
35. Philadelphia and New York: Summer 1778-Summer 1780
36. The Andre Affair: Fall 1780
37. The American School: 1777-1782
38. Billings and Law: the Yale Poets: New England 1777-1782
39. Charleston and Yorktown: May 1780-October 1781
40. Philadelphia: November 1781-November 1782
41. 1783: Peace REturning
Book 3: Virtue Against Luxury
Calendar for January 1784-April 1789
Part 1: American Culture between the Peace and the Constitutional Convention, 1784-1787
42. Commencement: 1783
43. The Art World
44. Musical Life
45. the Literary Scene
46. The Theatre
Part 2: Parades - American Culture 1787-1789
47. The Constitution: May 1787-June 1788
48. Late developments during the First Presidential Election: The first American songsters. the first American novel. the first American landscape paintings, the repeal of the anti-theatre laws: November 1788-March 1789
49. The Inaugeration of Washington: April 1789
Documentation and Notes
Index
