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The Magnificent Seven the Director an Interview with Historian Joseph J Inside: On the Road Again page 2 Unfinished Symphony page 3 New Host for Commonwealth Journal page 6 Mass Humanities Calendar page 7 Recent Grants HumanitiesA Publication of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities — Spring 2001 page 8 Letter from The Magnificent Seven the Director An Interview with Historian Joseph J. Ellis Dear Friends, oseph J. Ellis’s newest book, Founding Joseph J. Ellis We have had a busy and productive fall and JBrothers, The Revolutionary Generation, winter at MFH. Shortly after the last issue of is a lively and illuminating study of the inter- MassHumanities came out last October, the twined political lives of seven of the founders of Foundation sponsored Humanities on the Hill, the American republic — John Adams, Aaron where we invited Massachusetts legislators, Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, directors of MFH-funded projects, and others to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George the Massachusetts State House to experience Washington. Two of them are subjects of previous former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s books by Ellis, Passionate Sage (John Adams) Favorite Poem Project. Pinsky showed videos and the National Book Award-winning of ordinary people reading and discussing American Sphinx (Thomas Jefferson), but here poems they cherished, and then several legisla- they are looked at in relationship to their peers. tors took the podium to read their favorite Each chapter of Founding Brothers tells a poems—from “The Fishhouses” to “The Charge distinct story which Ellis interprets in light of fun- of the Light Brigade.” damental disagreements over the meaning of the This spring we will continue work with American Revolution on the part of those who MIT’s Center for Educational Computing fought it and went on to create a new nation: Nothing quite so dramatic occurred with Initiatives to complete Phase I of Bringing Burr and Hamilton’s deadly duel; Hamilton, regard to Founding Brothers. While speaking to History Home, the Foundation’s two-year Jefferson and Madison’s secret dinner, during public audiences, I found myself saying that effort to develop software that allows history which the seat of the capital was exchanged for Jefferson might be the most overrated member museums to create interactive narratives based adoption of Hamilton’s fiscal policy; Franklin’s of the revolutionary generation and John on their collections. Funded in part by the petition to end slavery — his last public act — Adams the most underrated and underappreci- National Endowment for the Humanities and and Madison’s effort to quash it; Washington’s ated. But the operative question everyone the Wellspring Foundation, Phase I involved precedent-setting Farewell Address; Adams’s dif- seemed to ask was, “who was the greatest?” the Paul Revere House, Plimoth Plantation, ficulties as Washington’s successor and his alleged And I began to formulate an answer to that and the Lowell National Historical Park. MFH scheme to pass the presidency on to his son; and question, which was, “Well, in some sense is seeking funding for Phase II, which will bring finally, Adams and Jefferson’s renewed corre- that’s the wrong question.” The greatness of six additional Massachusetts history museums spondence at the end of their lives, in which they the founding generation was in large part a into this innovative Internet-based project. came to terms with their very different views of function of the fact that it was a collective. For the second year, MFH sponsored the the Revolution and its legacy. Moreover, to use a term in an old-fashioned Clemente Course in the Humanities, the Joe Ellis is the Ford Foundation Professor of sense that has acquired a different meaning in nationally acclaimed program that offers low- History at Mount Holyoke College, where he has the late twentieth century, it is the diversity of income people college-level classes in history, taught since 1972 and served as Dean of Faculty the leadership class in the revolutionary gen- literature, philosophy, and art history, at the for 10 years. From 1979 to 1985 he served on eration that is largely responsible for the polit- Care Center in Holyoke. Several first-year the board of the Massachusetts Foundation for the ical success and the stability that it was able to graduates of the course, which is based on the Humanities, including three years on the achieve. If we try to appreciate the achieve- premise that all people have the right to the Executive Committee. He was interviewed at the ment of that generation, again realistically and cultural knowledge, personal enrichment, and Foundation office in South Hadley by MFH unsentimentally, warts and all, we must see intellectual development that can be gained Executive Director David Tebaldi. that these are not demigods, but real human through humanities study, have now gone on to beings with great faults. But it is the interac- college. Recently, we entered into partnerships tion of their talents and their faults that made with the Codman Square Health Center in David Tebaldi: At the beginning of your things work as effectively as they did. So I Dorchester and the Youth Development Gang, previous book, American Sphinx, you explain found myself effectively working out the major Inc., in Worcester, to offer this life-changing that your motivation for doing a study of argument of the Founding Brothers book in course in their communities next fall. Jefferson came from the public response you response to questions about the Jefferson book. witnessed to Clay Jenkinson’s portrayal of By the way, I traveled to Washington in DT: And why did you choose the title Thomas Jefferson at a public program at the December to attend the ceremony at which Founding Brothers? Earl Shorris, the founder of the Clemente American Antiquarian Society in Worcester. Course, received the National Humanities Was there some similar particular experience JE: It’s “brothers” rather than “fathers” for two Medal from President Clinton. [See Kristin that moved you to write Founding Brothers? reasons. First, that’s what they called them- selves. Jefferson keeps talking about the “band O’Connell’s interview with Earl Shorris in Joe Ellis: Well, the recollection of that of brothers,” which sounds like Shakespeare’s MassHumanities, Spring 2000.] Shorris’s book moment in the Jefferson book, while true, was line out of Henry V. Second, the term about the course, Riches for the Poor, has just also a bit of an exaggeration. I was already “fathers” distances us from them. Fathers are been published by W. W. Norton. pretty well committed to doing the Jefferson omniscient; they can do no wrong, or, later on, This month, the Foundation is piloting a book, but seeing the reaction to Jenkinson’s can do no right. Brothers are closer to us; new library reading and discussion series, performance, and seeing the sort of electro- brothers can be fraternal but also great rivals Desperate Journeys. Using books about 19th magnetic power that Jefferson seemed to have among contemporary Americans, clinched it Letter, continued on page 4 Interview continued on page 3 for me. On the Road Again Humanities by Cullen Murphy Main Office One Woodbridge Street South Hadley, MA 01075 (413) 536-1385 Fax (413) 534-6918 nyone who doubts that there is such a thing as human most spectacular, least grown-up, and most powerful and www.mfh.org Anature, durable over the eons, has only to pick up the magnificent nation ever known.” Inside USA is memorable Metro Boston Office Sonnets of Shakespeare or the Odes of Horace or the biblical both for its journalistic ambition and for its trenchant judg- 125 Walnut Street Watertown, MA 02472 Song of Songs. And anyone who doubts that there is such a ments. Thus, Gunther observes of Ohio Senator John W. (617) 923-1678 Fax (617) 923-8426 Bricker, the Republican vice-presidential candidate in thing called “national character,” durable even in a polity as STAFF messy and roiled as that of the United States, has only to 1944, that intellectually he resembled “interstellar space — Main Office, South Hadley pick up Alexis de Tocqueville. a vast vacuum occasionally crossed by homeless, wandering David Tebaldi That was a recurring thought as I read the fastidious new cliches.” Executive Director translation of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America by Harvey Charles Dickens made a celebrated progress through the [email protected] C. Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard, and United States a century before Gunther did, traveling as far Kristin O’Connell as St. Louis. In 1842 he published his travel diary, its entries Program Officer Delba Winthrop, the administrator of Harvard’s program on Resource Center Director constitutional government. There may be various good rea- by turn admiring and caustic, under the title American [email protected] sons for a new translation of any venerable work — fresh Notes. Dickens began his tour in Massachusetts, and his Anne Rogers scholarship, evolving public taste in language — but not the portrait of Boston society is generally respectful. His criti- Executive Assistant least of them is the inevitable second-order consequence: cal comments, though, display a confident awareness of per- [email protected] the simple fact of fresh attention. As a political observer, sistent local characteristics — the same comments might Hayley Wood have been made a hundred years earlier and a hundred years Administrative Assistant Tocqueville has been plundered for validation by both left [email protected] and right. But his social observations, gleaned from a nine- later. Here is Dickens on the power of religion: “In the kind Metro Boston Office month tour of the United States in 1831, represent a com- of provincial life which prevails in cities such as this, the Ellen K.
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