Martha Bradley lived in an age when a prosperous household often brewed its own beer, culturing and storing it in large wooden vessels in basements. Much could go wrong, so the section titled “Of Liquors” in the November chapter of her 1756 publication The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion consisted entirely of […]
In her recipes for November, Martha Bradley included only three for “Confectionary,” all of them jellies or custards. Her pies were savory, and her section on baking discussed only pigeons and larks. No cakes, biscuits, tarts or candies for this month. The desert table, if based strictly on the 1756 The British Housewife: or, the […]
To accompany our roast, Martha Bradley in her 1756 work The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion included recipes for stews, savory pies, dinner puddings, soups, sauces, and savory jellies called cullisses. She did not neglect side dishes of vegetables, one of which was the Savoy cabbage: Forced Savoys Chuse a Couple of […]
Yesterday, Martha Bradley, in her 1756 publication The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion, explained to us the various poultry available in the month of November. Rather than presenting separate recipes for each bird, her November section on “Cookery” offered this one: To roast Fowls in the Italian Way. Chuse for this Dish […]
Autumn is when many North Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, a tradition that dates back to the Reformation in England in the sixteenth century. Journal of the American Revolution has a tradition of presenting articles about food during the week of Thanksgiving in the United States. In 1756, Martha Bradley published a weekly series of pamphlets titled […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews PhD student Roberto Oscar Flores de Apodaca on recovering the religious life of the common soldier through prayer bills. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice to the writing on […]
Lord Stirling was not happy. The American brigadier general[1] was on a mission from George Washington to inspect the newly built fortifications in the Hudson Highlands of New York. As he sarcastically wrote Washington in early June 1776 the Westermost Battery is a streight line constructed by Mr Romans at a very great Expence, . . […]
Author’s Note: Selections from all resolutions and working drafts are italicized. Most of what we know about the framers’ discussions comes from James Madison’s Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787; material from Madison’s notes is identified by quotation marks or indented block quotes. The best print source, annotated by Adrienne Koch and […]
Washington’s Revolutionary War Generals by Stephen R. Taaffe. Campaigns and Commanders Series, Volume 68. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). Selection, promotion and performance of Revolutionary War generals is a critically under-researched aspect of the rebellion. In his second book on the Revolutionary War, Stephen R. Taaffe closes this gap in scholarship with his evaluation of […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR associate editor, Jim Piecuch who elaborates on his article about the suggestion for a British “Female Corp” and the role of women in the British and Continental armies during the American Revolution. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. […]
The officers of the Continental Army were sullen. It was December 1782, and they were stationed in and around Newburgh, New York, and neighboring New Windsor, where some 10,000 soldiers, the bulk of Gen. George Washington’s force, kept an eye on the British in New York City and waited to learn whether the war would […]
For every historian, there’s an event that makes them feel good every time they read about it. We asked our contributors: What event from the American Revolution and Founding Era (approximately 1765-1805) do you find most uplifting? Adam E. Zielinski General Washington’s speech to his troops on December 31, 1776. The army was about to […]
In late June 1780 a messenger arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with intelligence for Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis. The messenger, Capt. John La Boularderie De Treville, was a South Carolina Continental artillery officer and prisoner of war on parole. He was also a British spy. On at least four occasions, from June 1780 to January […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews maritime historian and long-time JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on the celebrated battle between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis off Flamborough Head, England, on September 23, 1779. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast […]
The British approach to its American colony in 1775 offers valuable lessons for historians and military professionals in the synthesis between the levels of wartime leadership and their effect on direct action at the tactical level. As such, it is worthwhile to reflect on the British experience in 1775, and how guidance from strategic and […]
The Rise of Thomas Paine and the Case of the Officers of Excise by Paul Myles (Lewes: The Thomas Paine Society UK, 2018) When John Adams noticed in the American Crisis II, which first appeared in January 1777, Thomas Paine’s comment that he had never published “a syllable in England in my life,” the declaration might have raised […]
William Trego’s painting The March to Valley Forge is iconic. Where the Continental Army marched from has been largely overlooked. That march was from The Conshohocken or Gulph Hills, in Upper Merion Township, about seven miles from Valley Forge, where the army encamped from December 13 to 19, 1777. As one historian noted, “These grounds were […]
Those who write “local history” without documenting or citing their sources may as well be writing historical fiction. There may be some truth in what they write, but it is hard to sort out fact from fiction in local and family stories. Even experienced historians who ordinarily provide citations to primary sources—documents, letters and first […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Eric Sterner about the Gnadenhutten Massacre, the murder of ninety-six Delaware Indians—men, women, and children—at a Moravian Mission settlement in Ohio by Pennsylvania Militia and settlers in 1782. A complex and tragic story that embodies the prejudices, cultural clashes, and brutality of the western frontier during the […]
