Abstract American politicians and American people have been co-opting the memory of the American Revolution to legitimize their beliefs since the dawn of the early republic. Over the last few decades, these efforts became increasingly more partisan, with explicitly political operators upholding one-sided perceptions of the Revolution as irrefutable truths. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the moment is apt to reflect on the historian’s role in deciphering the politicized historic past. With Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump both claiming legitimacy for their radically oppositional programs by invoking the founders, the symbolic weight and unifying potential of the Revolution are at their breaking point. As scholars, we must strive to understand how we got to this impasse and how we, as a nation, can navigate what historian Michael Hattem calls the ongoing “perfect storm” that runs the risk of permanently converting the Revolution into a fractious ideological weapon.
Abstract “Here come the beads and trinkets,” muttered Doreen Bond (Northern Cheyenne) in a 1975 meeting with the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. Many Native Americans responded to appeals for their participation in the 1976 United States Bicentennial with exasperation, disbelief, and anger. Three Native women, Thomasine Hill (Crow-Pawnee), Clydia Nahwoosky (Cherokee) and LaDonna Harris (Comanche) considered the year an opportunity to advance the discourse with an action plan for rights and dignity. Along with men like Wayne Chattin (Blackfeet), they contested the mythology of the attacking Indian and used their experience working with white institutions and individuals to advance the needs and voices of Native Americans. The Survival of American Indian Association undertook a Trail of Self-Determination, the most significant Indian bicentennial action, traveling from Washington state to Washington, DC, to challenge the American people and the federal government on its continued betrayal of Native American rights.
Abstract This article situates the United States bicentennial logo within the longer histories of Cold War public diplomacy, corporate branding, and federal arts policy, arguing that it functioned as an experiment in governing through design. Bruce Blackburn of Chermayeff & Geismar Associates Inc. envisioned the soft-edged, modernist “fat star” as a means for healing a nation fractured by the Vietnam War. Yet the logo’s reception exposed the limits of this strategy. While modernist design had proven effective in projecting a compelling image of the nation abroad, when applied to the bicentennial, the response from Americans was divided. Some embraced the “fat star,” while others perceived it as ahistorical, overly corporate, or insufficiently national, sparking debates over commercialization, patriotism, and identity. Ultimately, the bicentennial logo made visible the growing influence of consumer capitalism on American society and exposed, rather than resolved, the fractures of the 1970s.
Abstract This essay examines the continued power of white liberal nostalgia in the face of democratic crisis, notably concerning Atticus Finch—hero of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird . Examining Aaron Sorkin’s 2018 Broadway adaptation, released after Lee’s only other published novel, Go Set a Watchman (2015), which eviscerated the character’s liberal credentials, the essay documents twenty-first-century compromise with what I deem the “ Mockingbird creed.” In the context of the widespread racial reckoning that characterized recent decades, the inability of American audiences to reconsider and accept Atticus Finch as a white supremacist reflects a profound limitation in liberal culture and undermines efforts to comprehend U.S. history as it really was and political systems as they really are. In redoubling public commitment to the myth of Atticus Finch, we have failed to learn from its limitations, but instead repeat its platitudes in the face of both antiracist mobilization and democratic collapse.
