Reacting to Reacting: John Winthrop and William Blackstone in Boston

A street sign reading "Winthrop Lane."

My recent trip to Boston for research brought some updates about your friend and mine, John Winthrop, multi-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and head honcho of The Trial of Anne Hutchinson. As you may recall from either your time in the game or my other posts, the game revolves around determining whether or not the controversial Anne Hutchinson should be banished from the colony. John Winthrop heads both the colony and the faction which wishes to expel Hutchinson from its borders. Post-trial, while Anne was expelled and died shortly after, Winthrop led a long and celebrated life: he served a total of nineteen terms as governor despite criticisms and died in 1649. He is rumored to have regretted Hutchinson's banishment on his deathbed (perhaps because problems of keeping the colony religiously homogeneous proved to be both evergreen and bloody-- or perhaps this remorse never happened at all! History can be fun that way).

In any case, there's a lot of Winthrop's footprints around Boston. The top photo shows a sign for Winthrop Lane,one of many places in the state named after Winthrop. Winthrop Lane leads into a very small grassy area called Winthrop Square. Winthrop Square has a statue, but not of Winthrop, and I neglected to take a picture of it because I was so confused by this. For that tale, I'll refer you to this article from the Boston Globe.

The second photo deals with an event which precedes what my students have called "the Anne matter": 

A sign commemorating the 1634 purchase of Boston Common. 

This impressive sign in Boston Common commemorates the purchase of the gathering place under Winthrop's governorship. Blackstone (also spelled Blaxton) was the first European settler in the area which would become Boston, moving there alone in 1625 after arriving with a group of settlers to the south. He had accumulated a mass of land which he called his own, and welcomed the Puritans who arrived five years later, but soon wished to move on-- so, he sold them his pasture and moved to Rhode Island. This will sound very familiar to some of you-- many of Anne Hutchinson's supporters, like William Aspinwall, John Clark, and William Dyer, made similar moves in the wake of her banishment (though none of their pastures became Boston Common). 

This sparked my curiosity about Blackstone and his departure, which sent me down quite the internet rabbit hole. In a quick look, I've found limited and conflicting discussion of just why Blackstone left. Thomas Coffin Amory in 1877 poetically suggested that "The details of what followed are wanting, but in the end Blackstone found it convenient to leave," (7) and that Winthrop's band of Puritans, "Without actually driving [Blackstone] out… made it uncomfortable for him to stay" because he would not join the church (12). Wikipedia cites Louise Lind in saying that he simply "soon tired of their intolerance." The linked text which this comment came is now inoperative, but I tracked it down at the Wayback Machine and found it's an excerpt of a biography of  Blackstone. 

Another educational resource claims that "When the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived in 1630 and found him living on land for which they had a patent, they drove him out and ordered his house burned to the ground." This is a statement borne out by no other evidence, including the source about Blackstone cited within the same page. That source, a family history written by a descendant in the 1970s, suggests:

"It is very difficult to believe that BLACKSTONE sold all of his rights and interest in Shawmut to his full content and satisfaction, as is so stipulated in ODLIN's deposition. Rather, it is quite obvious that life was made very trying for him, and he simply took what he could get after considerable hassling with the powers in control. If the facts were known, he probably refused to sign any kind of release leaving GOVERNOR WINTHROP and his clan in a quandry and which prompted ODLIN's deposition nine years after WILLIAM's death."

Quite the tangled web! I would love to incorporate Blackstone into future playthroughs or discussions of the Anne Hutchinson game in some way. It certainly suggests the stubbornness of Winthrop and the others in his charge-- even a fellow white male Protestant critical of the Anglican church could not escape their pressures.

Delightfully, Blackstone/Blaxton's Wikipedia page bears the following statement:

Amory's text goes further than this. In his discussion of Blackstone's marriage to a Bostonian in 1659 (at the sprightly age of sixty), Amory suggests that "a recently discovered broadside shows that at this period he was accustomed to make occasional visits to Boston, riding on a bull, and the object of his pilgrimages may therefore be surmised" (17). Any Wikipedia editors out there should feel free to update this and garner editorial glory-- the people should know the truth about William Blackstone and his bull! 

Related Links:

Amory's pamphlet on Blackstone is short and just sort of delightful to read-- and free on Google Play. 

A discussion of Boston Common as a longstanding gathering place through the lens of the Commons Movement. 

Current Project: Who Tells Your Story: Fictionalizing US History, 1630-1918

“’Hamilton’ and History: Are They In Sync?” asked a 2016 headline in the New York Times.  The answers given to this question, provided by a variety of historians from Eric Foner to Lyra Monteiro, focused on how well Hamilton conforms to various sets of facts. The show either chooses to stretch Alexander Hamilton’s anti-slavery ideology beyond reality, or it does well in capturing his role as a notable abolitionist of the period. It places actors of color in roles based on largely white people and elides the actual contributions of black Americans, but also serves as a realistic depiction of the tangled political complications of the era. Hamilton—as well as other fictionalized accounts of historical people and events across a variety of media—gives scholars of all levels the opportunity to interrogate what it means to be “in sync” with history.

Since this week I am continuing work on my Widenor application, I thought I'd give an update on my current vision for the course. My plans have changed since I wrote last week due to the release of an updated list of courses. My course, “Who Tells Your Story: Fictionalizing US History, 1630-1918,” sets out to explore US history through fictionalized accounts including film, literature, musical theatre, and video games. What does it mean to fictionalize history, and how do we determine whether such a fictional treatment is “good” or “bad”? What liberties can one take with a person or event, and what must one portray faithfully? What does a particular piece of fictionalized history tell us about the time it depicts, and what does it tell us about the time in which it was created? How does the medium of the work make it particularly well- or poorly-suited to convey aspects of historical thought? This course encourages students to ask and provide multiple answers for these questions.

Material for the course will be drawn from a diverse variety of media, and materials assigned will be chosen through consideration of both pedagogical value and accessibility.

One thing I want to highlight a bit further than I have so far is the "What's History?" angle of these fictional pieces. My goal is not just to examine what media can tell us about history, but also how it engages with ideas of making history. As mentioned last week, Hamilton engages with not only historical facts but with the practice of history itself. Many works raise similar questions about historical practice. I intend to use this course to suggest that the practice of history is just as significant to their lives-- perhaps more so-- than the cohesive facts or narratives which these practices uncover or create. 

Any favorite works of fiction that are historical in some way? Any works that you consider particularly good at conveying the realities of historical practice?

What's History: "Burn" and Historical Agency

I'm currently working on an application to teach a stand alone course for HIST 270, United States History to 1815. I am enthusiastic about the possibility of teaching this course because I see it as an opportunity to follow themes of race, gender, sexuality, and ability into a period which is not technically within my wheelhouse. The prelim readings I did on the colonial and early American periods last year were fascinating to me because I had much less knowledge about these periods than the later years, and I'm eager to have the chance to incorporate some of the insights of those books into a course.

However, I'm also interested in incorporating modern connections, and so (like approximately 800,000 other history instructors out there) I have been incorporating some materials from uber-popular Broadway hit Hamilton. I've previously used a song cut from the final version of the show, Cabinet Battle 3, to illustrate the ways in which US founding documents pushed the issue of slavery further down the road. When I saw the show in Chicago from seats that I'm pretty sure were in an adjacent zip code to the stage, I was struck by the show's interest in the historical method. This is sort of an obvious connection in the closing number-- "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?" is clearly evoking questions about how we remember history and who gets to be a historical figure with a "legacy." However, I was most intrigued by the role of the historical process in Eliza Hamilton's song "Burn." The song occurs in the show's second act, following Alexander Hamilton's publication of the details of his extramarital affair.

Eliza's comments get at the ways in which historical actors (sometimes in ways that frustrate us) control the telling of their stories even centuries after their deaths. "I'm erasing myself from the narrative," she asserts, and "Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart." It's easy to talk about the ways in which people unintentionally reveal aspects of themselves in the records and objects their lives leave behind. The problem of what they have led us to believe through the presence or absence of particular items is thorny. Acknowledging this fact reminds us that the practice of history is less a narrative than a conversation, not only between a historian and other historians, but also between historians and sources and historical actors themselves.

I hope to use the song to engage in a discussion about ways in which people can and have shaped their own images in the historical record and how this activity continues. Susan B. Anthony performed a similar action by burning a vast quantity of her own archive. Lisa Tetrault suggests that this meant accounts authored or approved by Anthony "would become the source" for information about her life and suffrage activities (The Myth of Seneca Falls, 182).  I'll also incorporate some questions for discussion which link this idea to broader questions about historical practice and students' day-to-day lives:

How much is the historical record shaped by people's choices about what to save or destroy?

Why might someone destroy their papers? How might we figure out information about that person anyway?

What items or records would document your life? What could you add or remove to change the story?

Related Links:

There are quite good analyses at genius.com's lyrics page of the song, including in-depth breakdowns of the lyrics and a gif or two.

A piece at Mic on the "secret meaning" of the song (is it really that secret, though?) 

Reacting to Reacting: Randolph Bourne, Student Radical

I love it when my research allows me to indulge some personal curiosity I have about something. This was the case on my trip to Northampton, where I peeked in at the Helen Gurley Brown papers. Primarily, I sought information on Brown's sister Mary, a polio survivor, but also enjoyed peeking at the papers I had so longed to look at three years before, when I was finishing up my master's thesis on Brown's revitalized version of Cosmopolitan.

Visiting the Randolph Bourne papers at Columbia provided a different sort of satisfaction: getting a closer look at a character from the first Reacting to the Past game I ever encountered, Greenwich Village, 1913 (habitually shortened to GV). I looked at Bourne's papers in the hopes of finding some personal reflections on or similar to his work in "The Handicapped-- By One of Them" to use in my dissertation research about children with disabilities in the early twentieth century. However, in addition to learning a bit more about this piece and its reception (which I'll discuss more in a future post), I also found resources from Bourne's college days which shed light on some of the conflicts within the Greenwich Village game and the historical moment with which it engages. 

In GV, two factions, suffrage and labor, vie for the affections of the bohemians living in the neighborhood. The bohemians can be an unruly bunch-- loftily principled, if you think kindly on them; unrealistically flighty, if you're less charitable. One of the most focused bohemian roles is Randolph Bourne. The game describes him primarily as a young intellectual with firm beliefs in the vital power of youth to bring about social and political change. His piece "Youth" informs his speeches and writings within the game and those of other characters who wish to emphasize the value of vitality, novelty, and energy. Those who play him often pick up his voice fairly well in this respect, continually advocating for youthful energy and voices to play strong roles in the plans of the suffrage and labor factions.

One of the great additions I came across in Bourne's papers for future GV sessions was a series of replies to an editorial Bourne wrote for Columbia's Spectator while a student at the university. In the editorial, Bourne criticized university administrators for their exploitation of the women and children who labored at cleaning, book-delivery, and other "drudgery and primitive methods" he thought inappropriate for a university setting. Though I have not been able to find the full text of his editorial, it is referenced in this New York Times blurb from Feburary 26, 1913: 

Bourne's piece itself is a fantastic argument for his alliance with labor, as it showcases his interest in equitable working conditions and willingness to challenge systems of institutional authority. It could also be used to persuade him toward suffrage, as he seems particularly appalled by the degradation of women and children promoted by the university's practices and claims he and other students "blush with shame when they pass a poor, gaunt scrubwoman on her knees…or have a book delivered to them by an undersized, starving child."

The replies offer the opportunity to bring the discussion to another level. Most of them are strongly negative, taking Bourne to task for his exaggeration of the laborer's working conditions and his distrust of the university administration to know what is best. The writers of these replies found Bourne's ideology extreme and distasteful. Much of the Greenwich Village game is tightly wrapped in the insular community of Greenwich Village. In the Village, social cachet comes with doing something--anything-- that is daring, new, intellectual, fun-loving, or expressive. Radical ideas are the order of the day and for the most part all are trying to out-radical one another. There are some insertions of more conservative perspectives in the course of the game, particularly in opposition to woman suffrage which comes from outside the Village. These letters offer an intriguing look at everyday "college men's" opposition to ideas about labor rights in a context which affects him daily.  

Although people given the role of Bourne in GV are informed of Bourne's disability, it rarely comes up in game sessions or papers. I'm still struggling to come up with ways to promote discussion of this attribute of Bourne's life within the Greenwich Village game. I'll discuss Bourne's contributions to disability history, theory, and identity in another post. 

Related Links: 

Bourne is frequently lauded for his commentary on World War I, including his famous assertion that "War is the Health of the State."

The memory of Bourne's opposition to war has inspired continuing antiwar organizations, including the Randolph Bourne Institute.

John Dos Passos' piece about Bourne, written about a decade after his death, is often quoted (including in disability activist magazine The Ragged Edge's version of  "The Handicapped" linked above).