So i guess it is appropriate. Thanks so much to the Brooklyn Historical society, the old stone house, and Greenwood Cemetery for this opportunity, and especially to Meredith Duncan and marshall for their great organizational work. Ok, i thought i would start by just asking, how many of you have heard of the age of reason . All right, cool a lot of people. When you think of the enlightenment, you probably think about the rise of rational thought versus religious superstition. But did you know that People Living in the age of reason were actually just as obsessed with emotion . Think about it. The American Revolution was fought on the basis of the idea that all mankind is in doubt with certain inalienable rights. That among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Happiness. What is that emotion doing in the list of Political Rights . This is a question that many years ago now, set me off on the research that i would like to share a little bit of with you tonight. I wanted to know why is there a motion in the declaration of independence why is there emotion in the declaration of independence . I quickly discovered that although the 18th century often referred to as the age of reason, the period was equally swept up in a rising tide of emotion. It started probably with philosophy. You may think of enlightenment as rationalism, but the 18th century saw the development of an entirely new branch of philosophy, moral philosophy, that argued that moral sentiment, Human Emotion, was the foundation of moral decisionmaking. So that was one very important kind of high culture frame that made people interested in emotion. The allergy also increasingly theology increased the importance of emotion. It was the creation of heart religions that asked for people to have a kind of immediate, personal, and even ecstatic relationship with god. There is this brandnew emphasis, not so much on book learning, not so much on memorization of the bible and catechisms, things you would have seen in earlier centuries, but now this immediate emotional connection between believers and the divine. Beganture also increasingly emphasize emotion, the 18th century is the period where the novel as a literary form that was first created on the novel was characterized by this intense kind of expiration of peoples interior emotions and experiences. Theology, philosophy, literature, all of these high cultural streams that are increasing this kind of tide of emotion. What i wanted to figure out then was if members of the revolutionary generation were steeped in this kind of transatlantic culture of thatbility, how did cultural focus on emotion effect ordinary life . Daily life . Political life . What was the kind of impact, the effect of this new cultural trend . Write ledme to me to writing a book, and i will define the title in a second. The first thing i realized when i went to the archives and started reading peoples personal papers, their letters, their diaries, and especially their commonplace books, was how much interest in emotion there was. Anyone ever heard of commonplace books . It was a scrapbook. To put it into 20thcentury terms, it was like a tumbler account. Little bit the popular coulter and copy them into your commonplace book. Visual, be something could be an illustration, but it would be literary snippets, quotations people were interested in. And they were really interested in quotations that conveyed the ideas about emotion. In particular, ive found a remarkable number, dozens of commonplace books mentioning a poem by Alexander Pope called an essay on man. Alexander popes essay on man really drew together all of these new ideas about emotion that were percolating in the 18th century. , i what pope said was this got the quotation at the bottom vaste page here on life ocean, diversely we fail, reason is the card. The reason is the compass. But passion is the deal. Alexander pope was arguing really for the first time that the most important source of human motivation was emotion. And that this was a positive force for the good in society. Was really trendy, it was cool, hip, the thing. Have already said, it was generally referred to as a sensibility. And sensibility was supposed to , avery elegant, very refined cultivated person with a person of sensibility. In fact, sensibility was every bit as important for men as for women, maybe more so. Sensibility became the mark of refinement, but of civility. It was the hallmark of the way in which the british wanted to define themselves. Positive view of Human Emotion as the source of moral decisionmaking, as the force for good in society, this theories of christian thinking. Going back to saint augustine, christians had believed that there were two kinds of love. There was personal love, the kind of love that led you to want things for yourself, and it was inherently selfish and simple, and in fact, the path to detonation. And then there was christian love which was universal love. And that love was a good love. But the essence of christian teaching was the total submersion of the self, the submission of the self. Suddenly, you had Alexander Pope making exactly the opposite argument. Said inr pope actually the essay on man, in introductory passage to explain the whole point of the poem, god and nature linked in general frame and bathe self love and social be the theme. Pope is saying there is no difference between divine revelation and what we can find out if your a from the natural world. There is no difference between love for yourself and love for your community for the social and for society at large. This was pretty revolutionary stuff. And it was very exciting to american colonists on the eve of the American Revolution. Thesere all scribbling quotations that i have been sharing with you in their commonplace books. And actually publishing the essay on man in the colonies. Second,go back for a what i am showing here is an essay on man, and you can see it says that it was printed in london, but then you see philadelphia reprinted. Manyo, there want all that there were not many books printed in the colony. This one was so popular that it was printed in the colonies. Ok. Well, i wondered as i started to absorb how popular these new thinkings on a motion was, could it be connected to emerging ideas about natural rights during the American Revolution . How would a society that both wanted to promote the ambitions of individual people, but also safeguard the interests of society as a whole . How would they work out those potentially competing values . As they set about creating a new society . That became really the focus of the political aspect of my research. And it is what i want to talk to about tonight, practically speaking, what did it mean for American Revolutionaries to draw on these new ideas about emotion . All right. Lets get to a little bit about lets get to a little background on the revolution itself. The revolution, in some sense, began at the end of another war called the seven years war, or the french and indian war. That was a war of empire between britain and france and ended with france giving up all of it north american territorial claims. And leaving the continent, at least east of the mississippi entirely to british claims. Of course, there were many native american nations, and empires that did not recognize those claims, and i am not at all arguing that the british actually had anything like control, but as far as europeans were concerned, the confidence had been decisively defeat up and handed over from the french to the british. The image i am showing you commemorates that victory for the british. You can see bretagne is seated on the left with her shield. And you got france on the right. You can see the flag and is handing over the keys to the city of quebec that is pictured in the background there. This was a moment of enormous triumph for the british. They had one who all of north america they had won all of north america. It is a truly grant a moment. About this, it talks n that is what is written here, and talks about georges milder according to the british, the french were terrible and king george had a much milder sway. This was an era of auspicious new opportunity for the british. Extremelyars were expensive, and no sooner than this were injured in 1763, then the british found himself in financial difficulty, and the first thing they did was look to the colonies for new sources of revenue. 1764, the british started acts to tryrevenue to raise money from the colonies. The first thing they did was pass a tax on sugar in 1764. That was a very unpopular move. ,ou may know that molasses which was the focus of the tax, is actually the base ingredient for rob. , and rome was very popular. And the to a petitions asserting that the act was causing them economic injury, and since these petitions back to prison, where they were shelved, they were ignored and that no response. In fact, the british felt that they needed further sources of revenue. Their expenses included the payroll for 10,000 british wereders soldiers that left in north america to keep the peace at the end of the war. So that had so they had significant ongoing expenses. The next measure they put into place was the stamp act. The stamp act mandated that all printed materials in the colonies would be required to have a stamp. Embossed piece of paper in order to be legally valid. And the next image is a picture of this embossed stamp. George is noted on the stamp. Costsim posed serious new of doing business on the colonists. And it was not really that savvy of the british from a political perspective to put a tax on printed materials because who were the opinion makers in the colonies . The lawyers that were drying up contracts on paper and the printers that were printing these papers and books on paper. Although the sugar tax did not create widespread resistance beyond ineffectual petitions, the stamp act aroused extreme protests. This is where the use of emotion starts to get interesting. The stamp act was proposed in february of 1965. The very minute the bill has been proposed they started sending petitions to parliament. This is when they set forth the dock are no taxation without representation in a pamphlet called the right to british colonies. The king chief ministers then this series of virtual representation and the kind of political battle lines were drawn at that point. The act was actually due to go into effect november 1. There is this very long delay bill tween the proposal of the act to be manufactured, shipped over to the colonies and put in place, ready to use. The colonists had eight months to organize protests before the act would actually go into effect. By midsummer, by august it was getting hot. Now early on when parliament passed this act, the members of parliament actually justified the new revenue measure in the language of sensibility. They were thoroughly sensible of your majesties concerns for your people. They said they were animated, in order to pursue every plan. This is a very distinctive 18thcentury way of talking, saying im feeling so sensible. Colonial leaders who wanted to oppose the tax felt they had to answer in kind. They try to use the same flowery language in protest. Said the threat must deal with every tender breath. Toais must be must we be respond every softer in motion if we refuse to join our fellow citizens. There is this backandforth between britain and british colonists around us language of sensibility. When they first sent petitions, they try to make sure their petitions were filled. They wanted it to be emotionally moving. Moral decisionmaking is based on your moral response to events. If you want to get parliament to recent this tax you need to do it in a moving manner. In fact they ridiculed the colonists for their warm and unbecoming expression. A matter ofcame kind of an embarrassment. That their efforts were refined and cultivated and batted aside. And who in fact were told their warm and unbecoming expressions were too passionate, too , and not to this new idea. The next image i want to show you is original to my research. I want to show you two cartoons. What you will see when we look the philadelphia copy, it is a little bit backward. It is not as polished or finally done. The collector who actually the 19th century collector who donated to the Historical Society of where i came across it. He actually scrawled across it this was the copy done in philadelphia. It is not quite to the same level of refinement. On is the waycus it try to amp up the Emotional Message of the cartoon. Heres the first one. The deplorable state of america or stamp act government. This is the bertie languishing. This looks like the first victory image. This time she is staying that shes saying the stamp act. This is a feature of satire at the time. It wasnt polite to sell to spell out curse words. Its kind of giving the message this is a cursed act. Which holding out a box, thisbeled pandoras box. Is the English Version. By august things are getting violent. Beyond that stage of sending their humble petitions and starting to march in the streets. Now, this is the philadelphia version. You can hardly recognize it as the same image. It is so much more hectic in his visual style. It also makes a number of important symbolic changes. The first thing it does is it liberty a man and it makes america a young maiden. Here america is putting off britannia to his flying through the air. In the british version, america is an indian and the indian was frequently used as a symbol of the colonists which is not a compliment from the british. America here is a very strong and threatening indian man who is putting a hand on britannia. The americans do not want to convey that threatening angry house at this point. It is 1765. A decade before there will be at decade of independence. The colonists just with to be part of the glorious edition empire and the auspicious morning paper thought they would be part of. When the americans copied the cartoons, they changed so that america is now this lovely maiden in distress and she is turning her head aside try not to take the box. What interested me is that they changed with the characters are saying. In the american version, liberty portrays himself as the son of britannia. What he is saying, mother have pity. The English Version does not have any emotion words. The american version is asking these emotional terms for england to have pity. This is the kind of stuff that is coming out of the middle and upper classes in the colonies. The pecos bill petitions. The efforts to show that the colonists are part of the culture of sensibility. Efforts to play on the emotions of the british elite and get them to respond by rescinding the tax. Meanwhile come as a party said, as a party said, the meanwhile, as i already said, lower orders are taking to the streets and the newspapers were full of accounts of poplar ridge. Of popular rage. Not grief, not pecos, rage. One month in boston we set out to protest went to the house of a local leader, not affiliated with the british at all and with force and violence entered the house. They damaged and destroyed the furniture and took away the wearing apparel. Popular protesters were not only protesters the stamp act, but also attacking the very kinds of signs of status that they local colonial elite was a proud to have. Patriot leaders were faced with a problem at this point. They do not want the stamp act to go through. There were also very nervous about uncontrolled unrest amongst members of the lower order. The answer for them turned out to be to invite all the colonists to participate in the culture of greed. This is a interesting moment because up until now, the idea has been that emotional sensibility is the special mark of refinement. With the stamp act protest, suddenly there is a new move toward saying anyone can respond, anyone can cultivate their emotions. You dont have to be a member of the elite. You could just be an ordinary person who responds out of this comment human ability to feel sympathy. In order to dramatize that idea, what leaders did was organize funerals for liberty. You can see here that liberty, this is liberty personified, he looks like he is on his last leg. He is about to expire. They dramatize this still further by organizing mass public funerals for liberty. Crowds marched caring carrying coffins. Bells were wrong. Flags are raised halfmast. People streamed through the streets parading in funerals for liberty. This is a special tombstone in addition the pennsylvania journal. It is a reading newspaper. The New York Times of the day. It was published by william bradford. What he did was remade the masthead to look like a tombstone. Here you have libertys coffin and if you could read this more clearly, its a physical and crossbones, the symbol of the poison of the stand. This was published on october 31, 1765. One day before the stamp act was supposed to go into effect. This kind of mass public protest really changed the terms of emotional rhetoric. Colonists stopped appealing to britain for feeling. They started appealing to each other. Lets skip ahead now the revolutionary protest years to the boston massacre. One other quick image to show you. The stamp act was repealed. George rundle designed resigned. The back was repealed. This was a huge win for this emotional style of protest. What you have here is a british cartoon celebrating the repeal at the funeral of the stamp. I will point out a couple of interesting things. The america stamp is a little baby. It was not proper to mourn for babies. Infant mortality was very high. Public mourning was supposed to be reserved for great figures. This is supposed to represent a humiliating image that they are crying over a baby. What you have here are stamps from america and black cloth from america. The point i want to make is that part and parcel of this protest movement was the beginning of a boycott movement. An economic boycott work on his pledge to stop importing consumer goods from england. Although it may sound odd now, one of the most important kinds of discretionary purchases were funeral goods. People did not have a lot of stuff. It was important during a funeral for people to have black cloth and they also would give out commemorative rings in honor of the deceased person or there could be commemorative handkerchiefs. Morning goods were an important part of consumers in. It is quite significant that at the moment they started making these political funerals, americans did not import black cloth which is what is labeled their. They simplified actual funerals at the same time. Lets skip ahead now. The boston massacre. 1770. What happened there was that british troops had been permanently stationed in