Revolutionary Remembrance

Even more so than usual, this Labor Day weekend seemed like the end of summer to me. Actually, not just the end, but the finale. This was quite a productive summer, even though I didn’t really produce anything: there were more edits on Salem’s Centuries and the new experience of working as a guide at Historic New England’s Phillips House, but what I was really focused on was Salem’s experience of the American Revolution. I read really widely on this topic, and learned a lot: I honestly don’t think I’ve read as much history since graduate school. It actually felt like graduate school, but without the pressure. As I say all the time on this blog, I’m not an American historian, so to truly understand historical forces at work at any time in Salem’s history, I have to get up to speed by going through both the classic texts as well as more recent studies. For a topic as big as the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, “background” is going to involve reading a lot of books, and so I did. At the beginning of the summer, all I wanted was to understand Salem’s role as provincial capital during the summer of 1774, but I couldn’t really grasp that without some understanding of the forces (and people!) at play in British America in general and Massachusetts in particular during the period between the close of the Seven Years’ War and the Boston Tea Pary. I would finish one book on this era with the realization that I had to read two or three or four more. I had questions which led to more questions. And it was all so PERSONAL: I had to figure out all the networks as well. My “revolutionary Salem summer” reading project was also personal, but it had public validation: Massachusetts has been in revolution-commemoration mode for a while thanks to the efforts and organzation of Revolution250  so there were regional events all summer long and this is also the bicentennial year of the (General) Marquis de Lafayette’s triumphant return tour of the United States, an anniversary marked by a succession of reenactments in the towns and cities which he visited originally, including Salem this very weekend. For an early modern European historian, this kind of synchronicity seldom happens!

Waiting for the General/ Marquis at a Red, White, and Blue Picnic in Chestnut Street Park—in this last photo, a very chill cat on a leash captured everyone’s attention, especially this regency toddler!

Lafeyette arrived in Salem around 2:00 pm, there were formal welcomes and speeches and a few photo ops, and then he was on his way. This was a busy day for the Marquis/General: it started in Chelsea, and then he visited Marblehead, Salem, Beverly and ended up in Ipswich—just like August 31, 1824. This was a very enjoyable event, co-sponsored by nearly all of the non-witchy nonprofits of Salem: Hamilton Hall, The Salem Athenaeum, The Phillips House, and the Pickering House, as well as Essex Heritage and the Creative Collective, and the colorful assistance of the Danvers Alarm List Company. The 1824 tour of “the Nation’s Guest” was marked by a spirited public exuberance which sustained and even rekindled memories of the American Revolution; let’s hope this Bicentennial tour can do the same! If it does, it will be in large part due to the efforts of the American Friends of Lafayette, an organization which has been cultivating the General’s character and contributions since 1932. Even though it was just one pitstop on a long day for Lafayette in 1824, the preparations in Salem were detailed and complex: you can see John Remond’s catering accounts at the Phillips Library and read all about the lengthy cavalcade here. And Salem was not alone: for comparison’s sake (and to get inspired for this weekend), I went to see the Lexington Historical Society’s small exhibition, “The President and the General,” last week. While some of the exhibits clearly belonged to another time, others clearly have resonance in our own, like the banner that boldly states LIBERTY.

Couldn’t quite capture the T & the Y! An allegorical image of Lafayette returning to France with founding-father protectors; ribbon/sash, invitation, banners from the 1824 tour, Lexington Historical Society.