Protocols of Liberty: Chapter Illustration: Broadcasting the King’s Word

Table of Contents to the Whole Site

Introduction -- Communication and the American Crisis

The Vortex of the Revolution -- An Animation

Boston Committee's Correspondence with the Towns of Massachusetts -- An Animation

Markup of 12 March 1770 Boston Gazette

Detail of the Vote of the Town Meeting

"The Bloody Massacre" by Paul Revere

John Singleton Copley Portrait of Samuel Adams

Reforms and Resistance in British America

Thomas Pownall's The Administration of the Colonies understood as a Newtonian System

Three Maps of Boston: 1643, 1722, 1769

Image Comparison: South View & 1770 Revere Print of 1768 Landing of British Troops

Network Topology

The People Made the Revolution!

Chapter 1 -- The Invention of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Popular Declaration

Features of a Felicitous Petition

A Chronology of the Political Agon Opened 28 Oct – 20 Nov 1772

Title Page of the Votes and Proceedings

The Complex Five-Part Structure of The Votes and Proceedings of the Town of Boston

Contrasting Images of The Liberty Tree

Faneuil Hall: the site of the Regular Meetings of the Boston Committee of Correspondences

Chapter 2 -- The Protocols of the Declarations and the Eclipse of Royal Power in Massachusetts in 1773

Response of the Towns plotted by the date that responses
were received by Boston Committee

FLASH Animation of the Boston Committee's Correspondence with the Towns of Massashusetts (NOTE: Opens in separate window; click PLAY button to begin, or to restart after pause.)

The Varied Declarations of the Towns

Circular broadsides & pamphlets published by the
Boston Committee of Correspondence, 1772-1775

Thomas Hutchinson at his Prime

Henry Pelham 1776 map of Boston Harbor

The Debate of the Governor with the Council and the House

The Circulation of “Copies of Letters Sent to Great Britain…”

Did Samuel Adams give the signal for the start of the destruction of the tea?

Chapter 3 -- The Post and Newspaper in British America: A Communication System in Crisis

The Gradual Emergence of the British-American Postal System

Standardizing North American Postal Rates -- 1765

“Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky” by Benjamin West, circa 1816

Schematic of the Accounting System developed by Benjamin Franklin for the Post Office of British America in 1753

Broadcasting the King’s Word

Charting the Temperature of the American Crisis

Tea Ship Arrived! (Boston) & Tea Ship Arrived (Philadelphia)

Chapter 4 -- The Whig Network Scales Up: Inflecting the Crisis from Williamsburg

The Boston Port Bill as Trigger of the Revolution

Virginia Reacts to the Boston Port Act, 24 May – 1 June 1774

Key Places of Political Events in Williamsburg Virginia 24 May – 1 June 1774

The Three-Fold Letter Received by the Virginia Committee of Correspondence on Sunday 29 May 1774

The Economic Importance of the Chesapeake

Official responses to the VA CC from various Assemblies

How a Communications Link was Forged Between Boston and Virginia (November 1772 - April 1773)

Boston Committee of Correspondence Broadside of the Resolves of the House of Burgesses Instituting the Virginia Committee of Correspondence

Chapter 5 -- “A Chain of Freedom Has Been Formed” : The First Continental Congress Develops into the Hub of an Intercolonial Network

"Join or Die": the Problem of Uniting the Colonies

A Chart of the Gathering of the First Continental Congress out of the Committees, Conventions, and Assemblies of 12 OF 13 COLONIES

Downtown Philadelphia during the First Continental Congress

Comparisons of Regions of British America by Population, Imports and Exports

Critical Communications of the Congress

Titlepage of a London edition of the Journal of the Continental Congress

Pamphlet reporting the Resolves of the Pennsylvania Convention in support of the Continental Congress

Chapter 6 -- The Panorama of the Declaration

Successive Waves of Declarations Preceding the Declaration of Independence

Thomas Paine the Inventor of the Modern Sound-bite?

The Morphology of the Declaration

Thomas Jefferson as the Drafter not the Author of the Declaration

The Art of the Panorama

The Five Parts of The Declaration of Independence understood as a Verbal Panorama

Diagramming a sentence that performs Independence and the promise that supports it.

The Goddard Broadside of the Declaration -- January 18, 1777

The Betsy Ross Flag and Mesh Topology

Conclusion -- The American Revolution as a Gift

Abigail and John Adams and Gender: the necessary exclusion?

Declaring Women's Rights in Seneca Falls

Frederick Douglass: "What for a Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Union Dissolved – South Carolina