Hodes – Popular Politics in Early America

Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

In her article for Rethinking History, Martha Hodes uses a combination of primary source material and her own speculation to tell the story of Eunice Richardson, a Civil War widow who later remarried a West Indian man of color. I enjoyed Hodes’ writing and appreciated the fact that the article’s arguments were rooted in primary source documents, namely from Eunice’s correspondences. However, I’m conflicted about Hodes’ use of speculation in her creation of the possible scenarios that would have led to Hodes’ courtship with her second husband, William Smiley (though Hodes was totally honest about when she was employing such speculation). In my time doing history in school, I have always been told that any argument I make must be rooted in hard evidence in primary source documents. Hodes clearly does not do this at certain points.
For example, on page five, Hodes discusses the possible ways Eunice and Smiley could have met in Massachusetts, concluding that the most likely place was a Congregationalist church in Pawtucket, based on the church’s reputation for being inclusive of non-whites and those of other Christian sects. However, I felt that Hodes glossed over the fact that neither Eunice nor Smiley were Congregationalists, which was the only hard evidence she had on the matter. Again, Hodes did not try and fool the reader into taking her speculation as absolute truth, but I’m unsure about how seriously one can take an argument that relies so heavily on speculation. Similarly, on pages six to seven, Hodes now having decided on Alabama as their most likely meeting place, speculates that Eunice’s trip to Vermont was part of a courtship custom of the time to test Smiley’s resolve as a suitor. Hodes admits she is speculating when she first mentions it, but then that one piece of speculation is used as an underpinning of her later arguments as if it is hard fact. I have some trouble with that kind of argument because it goes against so much of what I have learned about writing history.
However, after reading some classmates’ posts on this article, I gained more respect for Hodes’ work. In his blog, Ben Hartshorn says that “writing about Thomas Jefferson (who filed and recorded his prolific writing so well) would not require this sort of reconnaissance work.” He makes an interesting point. Someone like Thomas Jefferson produced countless writings of his own—not to mention, his status as a wealthy landowner in 18th century made his contemporaries more likely to pay attention to him and record his words—a poor widow like Eunice Stone did not have that benefit. So, as long as one is honest about what they are doing, it can be useful to engage in some speculation (backed up by primary source material and a knowledge of the times’ customs) to see the possibilities of an interesting life that unfortunately went undocumented. So, while Hodes’ methods can be a bit jarring at first, upon further consideration, I certainly can appreciate her motivations.

After reading the introduction to Beyond the Founders and discussing it in class on Tuesday, I was very interested to see how the rest of our readings would approach writing about history. Martha Hodes’ “Four Episodes in Re-creating a Life” and Jeffrey L. Pasley’s “The Cheese and the Words: Popular Political Culture and Participatory Democracy in the Early American Republic” both wrote about early American history effectively, but with vastly different methodologies.

Martha Hodes’ exploration into the vaguely narrated life of Eunice Richardson was a bold piece that attempted to fill in some historical blanks. While some of her pieced in evidence seemed far-fetched (such as, “Miss Clara is the same madcap as ever, Eunice wrote of her young daughter in 1864, invoking the common Caymanian manner of address. Had Eunice just received a letter from the sea captain, asking after the children, the unwittingly echoed that West Indian turn of phrase in a letter to her mother?”), the thought process and research that she put into the piece are interesting, creative, and thorough. She followed the story as far as she could, as she traveled throughout the country and visiting the same towns and buildings that Eunice once knew. While it’s hard to say one way or another if Hodes’ thesis has sufficient support, this type of historical writing and research interests me very much. Hodes used creativity in her piece that I have rarely seen before in a history class. Writing about Thomas Jefferson (who filed and recorded his prolific writing so well) would not require this sort of reconnaissance work. Yet, as we talked about in class and AJ Pignone wrote extensively about in his blog, the best way to get a full history of a time period is through a careful combination of the major players and those who were more silenced. As AJ says, “history doesn’t come in squares and circles, it takes many different shapes and sizes, so why should we look at the early republic any differently?” (AJ Pignone, Olney, MD). “Four Episodes” is certainly a different shape and is critical to retelling and interpreting history in the best, most accurate way.

Jeffrey Pasley’s article about the famous (or infamous, as Federalist sympathizers would say) mammoth cheese from Chesire, Massachusetts told the story of early American politics in a way that hardly mentioned the founders. Pasley made some very interesting points about how common people worked to have a political voice. Whether it was through cheese, bread, newspapers, parades, toasts, or votes, Pasley discussed how American factions operated and thrived before organized political parties. I found Pasley’s points about newspapers very remarkable as he writes, “After 1800, no serious political activist thought that anything could be accomplished without newspaper support in as many places as possible, and at times they equated the maintenance of a newspaper with the actual existence of a party, faction, or movement” (41). There was then good information and research showing how newspapers (such as The Sun) influenced and shaped local and national politics. His statements on newspapers stress that they were just as influential and important to politics as Jefferson and Washington were. This is another example of how different shapes and pieces of the puzzle are necessary to get the full history of something. While certainly not as widely read as a biography about Benjamin Franklin would be, articles like Hodes’ and Pasley’s are crucial to the historical tale.

Tag: Hodes

Hodes' Use of Speculation

The Different Ways to Tell a History