American History, Popular
Media, and Modern Life
Historical Background: The American Revolution
• American History
• We will start from the modern period
from the end of the 19th century
• Media
• the means
of communication that reach large
number of people, such as
television, newspaper, and radio
• Life
• "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness ” (Thomas Jefferson, 1776)
• American way of life/ American dream
• American way of life=“A
consumerist lifestyle
supported by a system
based in free enterprise
has been the ideological
backbone of the
American Way, but the
term has been attached to
everything from farming
to baseball to barbecue”
(L. Samuel, 2017)
American Dream
• American dream = "that
dream of a land in which
life should be better and
richer and fuller for
everyone, with
opportunity for each
according to ability or
achievement.” J. Adams,
1931)
French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, 1754-1763
• The war resulted from ongoing
frontier tensions in North America as
both French and British imperial
officials and colonists sought to
extend each country's sphere of
influence
• It ended with the Treaty of Paris in
1763. The war provided Great Britain
enormous territorial gains in North
America
• The war had been enormously
expensive, and the British
government's attempts to impose
taxes on colonists to help cover these
expenses, which led to colonial
discontent
Causes of American Revolution 1765- 1783
• Seven Years War---causing war debt to Great Britain
• Taxes
• The British government enacted a series of new taxes to cope with the financial crisis
• Stamp Act of 1765 - all printed documents would be required by law to carry a stamp.
• It was a direct tax imposed by the British government without the approval of the colonial
legislatures
• the Stamp Act ranged from boycotts of British goods to riots and attacks on the tax
collectors.
• No taxation without representation
• The Enlightenment ---philosophical movement
The Enlightenment
• 'The Enlightenment' has been given many differing definitions but it was,
at its broadest, a philosophical movement of the eighteenth century
which stressed human reasoning over blind faith or obedience and was
thus in contrast with much of the religious and political order of the day,
while also encouraging 'scientific' thinking.
• They believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance,
superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world.
Thomas Paine wrote
“Common Sense” (1776)
“Europe, and not England, is the parent
country of America. This new world hath
been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of
civil and religious liberty from every part of
Europe. Hither they have fled, not from
the tender embraces of the mother, but
from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so
far true of England, that the same tyranny
which drove the first emigrants from home,
pursues their descendants still.”
American Enlightenment
• In the pre-revolutionary years, Americans reacted to the misrule of King George
III, the unfairness of Parliament (“taxation without representation”) and
exploitative treatment at the hands of a colonial power: the English Empire.
• Thomas Paine wrote the famous pamphlet The Rights of Man, decrying the abuses of
the North American colonies by their English masters
• The enlightenment ideas are reflected in documents such as :
• Declaration of Independence
• Federalist Papers
• United States Constitution
The Declaration of Independence
“Liberty Enlightening
the World”
⬧ Boston Massacre 1770
⬧ Boston Tea Party 1773
⬧ Continental Congress 1774
⬧ Colonial delegates meet to organise
opposition to the Intolerable Acts.
⬧ Battles of Lexington and Concord 1775
⬧ Continental Congress appoints George
Washington commander-in-chief of
Continental Army
⬧ 4 July 1776 Continental Congress issues the
Declaration of Independence
⬧ France recognises US Independence (1778)
George Washington
George Washington preparing to cross the
Delaware river, Washington Irving, The Life
of George Washington, New York, 1856 -
1859
Extract from the Declaration of Independence (1776)
…the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress
assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies,
solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right
ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all
allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them
and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as
free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude
peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts
and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this
declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.