UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Worlds of Print: The Moral Imagination of an Informed Citizenry, 1734-1839 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4bs33789 Author Slifko, John Paul Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Worlds of Print: The Moral Imagination of an Informed Citizenry, 1734 to 1839 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Geography by John Slifko 2015 © Copyright by John Slifko 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Worlds of Print: The Moral Imagination of an Informed Citizenry, 1734 to 1839 by John Slifko Doctor of Philosophy in Geography University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor J. N. Entrikin, Chair Plato, Aristotle, Baron Montesquieu, and Jean Jacques Rousseau argued that you could never have a democracy bigger than the geographic size, intimate oral habits, and embodied rituals of face-to-face communication, and walking distance of a Greek city-state, French town, or small Swiss city. However, in the years surrounding the 1776 American War of Independence and accelerating into the 1800s in the American northeast and mid-Atlantic, there was a significant cultural transformation in the transition from oral/aural cultures to an increasingly literate citizenry. A consequence of this transition was an expanded geographical range of democratic engagement. I argue that freemasonry was representative and played an important role in this transformation and helped articulate the moral imagination of an informed democratic citizenry via fast emerging worlds of print. A metamorphosis occurred through worlds of print anchored at ii home in the routine lives of local community and transmission in space across networks of place. Communication and political participation were enhanced in early America through a growing range of print vehicles such as pamphlets, newspapers, declarations and books of all types concerned with ancient and modern learning. The formation of local civic associations and reading libraries further contributed to this growth of available print documents. In this dissertation I examine the vital roles that freemasons played in this print transformation. iii The dissertation of John Slifko is approved. Michael R. Curry Margaret C. Jacob J. N. Entrikin, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... ii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ viiii Vita………………………………………………………………………………………………vii Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 A. Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................................... 1 B. The Argument ................................................................................................................. 10 Chapter 2: Critical Texts in London Freemasonry ................................................................. 19 A. English (London) Freemasonry ..................................................................................... 19 B Cosmopolitan Freemasons’ Interest in Ritual, Qualitative Place, and Transmission ... 38 C. The Tattler ...................................................................................................................... 48 D. Ahiman Rezon: Irish Anti-imperial Accents ................................................................. 500 E. The Jachin and Boaz Exposure ...................................................................................... 52 F. William Preston’s Illustrations of Masonry ................................................................... 55 G. Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................................. 57 Chapter 3: Early American Freemasonry, Wider Civil Society, and Ritual and Transmission Logics of the Printed Text .................................................................................. 61 A. Philadelphia ................................................................................................................... 62 B. The Moral Imagination of an Informed Citizenry .......................................................... 65 C. Franklin and the Transmission of Information in Civil Society ..................................... 71 D. William Bentley and the Universal Movement of Information in the Enlightened Republic ................................................................................................................................. 79 E. Isaiah Thomas and another Printing Network in Worcester a la Franklin ................... 82 F. DeWitt Clinton................................................................................................................ 89 G. Hezekiah Niles and the Generation after the Revolutionary War .................................. 94 H. Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................................. 96 Chapter 4: John Dunlap and Early American Worlds of Print ........................................... 103 A. Printing Networks ........................................................................................................ 106 B. Dunlap’s Breadth of Work ........................................................................................... 107 C. The Ancients and the Moderns ..................................................................................... 109 v D. The Oration in Dunlap’s Portfolio and the Perceived Martyr Joseph Warren ........... 113 E. The Ritual and Transmission Logics of the Declaration of Independence in the Formation of a Public.......................................................................................................... 121 F. Military Habit, Quality, and Masculine Formation of the State .................................. 131 G. Dunlap’s Reporting on the Martial Dramaturgy and Freemasonry of General George Washington .......................................................................................................................... 136 H. Summary and Conclusions ........................................................................................... 142 Chapter 5: The Early American Experience of the Embodied Self and Others ................. 144 A. Prince Hall in Freemasonry and the Early African American Public Sphere ............. 144 B. The Experience of First Nations in the Ohio................................................................ 162 C. Women in American Civil Society at the Founding ..................................................... 169 D. Summary and Conclusions ........................................................................................... 175 Chapter 6: The Laying of the Cornerstone Ceremonies at the American Founding ......... 177 A. The Laying of the Cornerstone at Jone’s Point ........................................................... 177 B. Creation of the Federal District ................................................................................... 181 C. Significance of Freemasons in Building the President’s House .................................. 190 D. The United States Capitol Cornerstone Ceremonies in 1793 ...................................... 193 E. The Quality of the Transactional Self, Embodied Place and Light .............................. 203 F. Summary and Conclusions ........................................................................................... 204 Chapter 7: Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 205 Appendix A: The American Declaration of Independence ................................................... 209 Appendix B: From the Columbian Mirror & Alexandria Gazette ...................................... 217 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 221 vi List of Figures Figure 1: The Population and Pattern of Cities in the Mid-nineteenth Century Union of States in 1860 ............................................................................................................................................... 13 Figure 2: John Pine, Frontispiece of the 17 23 Book of Constitutions of the Free-Masons 24 Figure 3: Bernard Picart, Grand Lodge of London 1735, an image of the cosmopolitan freemasons . ................................................................................................................................... 39 Figure 4: Paul Revere , The Bloody Massacre in King-Street, March 5, 1770 ............................118 Figure 5: The Declaration of Independence, first officially performed for the public on July 6, 1776 at high noon ........................................................................................................................ 125 Figure 6: Photo by Michael Curry, UCLA Department of Geography . ..................................... 127 Figure 7: Jones Point at the Southernmost Point of the Federal District Diamond ...................