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

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.

Alfred Young's book is a well-written example of how ordinary people shaped the Revolution. History tends to limit itself to the "Great Men" of the time, but sometimes an ordinary person like George Robert Twelves Hewes finds himself recorded into history. In this case, Hewes just happened to outlive many of the others who fought in the Revolution, and his experiences managed to live on in two biographies written about him while he was still alive. But Hewes is only part of the story. The rest of the book details how certain events of the Revolution have been forgotten (or at least not celebrated) such as the tar-and-feathering of John Malcolm. Young's book is striking and poignant, and it is written in a curt manner. I would suggest this book to anybody who has an interest in the American Revolution.

How did the idea of a revolution take hold among those who cared little about a tax on tea? The story of an apprentice shoemaker, (the lowest of the trades, we learn) who, one year humbles himself at the house of a successful Bostonian businessman, and, the next year refuses to doff his hat to a British ship's captain on the street. What changed him? Divided into two parts, the first half of this book is excellent, the second half less so. More academic than a pop history, but still a good read, I'm glad I bought it. The kind of book that leaves you feeling you learned something and read a good book at the same time.

As I get older, I get less & less likely to read those American History "survey" books than ever, and to find my solace in "little books" about real events that the historians use as a lever to explain, to explain intensely, a slice of the past. The Shoemaker & the Tea Party is just such a volume of interpretive history. The book consists of two historical essays, the first of which dredges everything we could possibly find out about the Shoemaker & his involvement in historical events ... the second which evaluates how the Tea Party has been viewed through history as different "powers" have had their hands on the rudder of historical interpretation. This book, like others about the early Republic, shows how our revolution was a profoundly conservative event, not an event that challenged the social structure of the colonies (except insofar as assets from the Tory elite were confiscated by the revolutionary elite). Although the revolution was made by both the elite & the workingman (tradesman & farmers), it was naturally the elite who chose to view & to institutionalize that view, historical events through their own eyes. The importance of social stability was paramount, hence the mob'ist origins of the revolution were downplayed or ignored. By the time this fellow, the Shoemaker, reemerged in the 1830s, the course of our American History writing about this topic was set in stone. The revolution was not a chaotic, angry event, but a smooth, patriotic one. This is a short book, alittle pricey for its length, but well worth reading.

Similar to Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States," Young's book views history through the eyes of a member of the "middling" class. The book is really two stories- the life of George Robert Twelves Hughes, a poor Boston shoemaker who was present at many famous events in Colonial Boston (as remembered by him); the second part presents the public's memory (e.g. why certain groups feel differently about certain events, how and why they came to be commemorated, etc.). Anyone intersted in American history would enjoy this thought provoking contribution. It will make you think about where we the people feel the lines are to be drawn between protesting and revolting.