Resources
Bibliography
Barlow, Joel, “The Vision of Columbus; a Poem in Nine Books.” Evans Early American
Collection. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N15823.0001.001. Accessed: July 29, 2017.
Bowen, Catherine Drinker. Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention
May to September 1787. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books, 1966.
Beers, Henry A. “The Connecticut Wits” in The Connecticut Wits and Other Essays. New Haven, CT: The Yale University Press, 1921, chs. 1, 3, 7.
Brown, Irving. The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 7. Edited by A. W. Ward, et al. New
York, NY: The MacMillan Company. 1903.
Castillero Middle School. https://www.greatschools.org/california/san-jose/5656-
Castillero-Middle-School/ Accessed: July 15, 2017.
California Department of Education, California Common Core State Standards English
Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/finalelaccssstandards.pdf (accessed August 12, 2017).
Conger, Danielle E. "Toward a Native American Nationalism: Joel Barlow's The Vision of
Columbus." The New England Quarterly 72, no. 4 (1999): 558-76. doi:10.2307/366828.
Courtney, Steven, Hartford Wits – Or Were They?. Hartford Courant, August 4, 2002.
http://www.courant.com/features/books/hc-lqhfdwits0804.artaug04-story.html.
Accessed June 4, 2017
Dame, Frederick William. America’s Indomitable Character Volume II: From the Height of
Colonialism to Revolution. Books on Demand, 2014.
Ellis, Joseph J. “The Articles and the Vision” in The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second
American Revolution, 1783 – 1789. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2015.
Fry, Paul H., “Poetry Makes Nothing Happen (Auden): What Does That Mean and Why?”
(presentation, Yale National Initiative, Yale University - New Haven, CT, July 14, 2017).
Goetzmann, William H. “The Writer and the Republic” in Beyond the Revolution: A History of
American Thought from Paine to Pragmatism. Basic Books, New York, NY: 2009.
Hattem, Michael D. Past and Prologue: History Culture and the American. Revolution PhD
diss., Yale University, New Haven, CT: 2017
Howard, Leon. The Connecticut Wits. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago
Press, 1943. [Chapters on Barlow, Humphreys, Yale College, and Trumbull.]
Humphreys, David. “Mount Vernon: An Ode” in The Miscellaneous Works of Colonel
Humphreys. New York, NY: Bibliolife, LLC – Originally published by Hodge, Allen and
Campbell, Date of publication unknown.
--- “Address to the Armies of the United States of America” in The Miscellaneous Works of
Colonel Humphreys, 29. New York, NY: Bibliolife, LLC – Originally published by Hodge, Allen and Campbell, Date of publication unknown.
Humphreys, Frank Landon. The Life and Times of David Humphreys: Soldier, Statesman, Poet.
New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Nook Book version. 1917.
Lehman, Eric D. Holes in the Canon: The Hartford Wits and Literary History.
http://queenmobs.com/2016/12/hartford-wits-and-literary-history/ Accessed: July 15, 2017.
Lehman, Eric D. and Nawrocki, Amy. Literary Connecticut: The Hartford Wits, Mark Twain and
the New Millennium. SC: The History Press, 2014.
Maier, Pauline. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788. New York, NY:
Simon & Schuster, 2010. Nook Book version.
Marble, Annie Russell. The Hartford Wits. Annie Marble Russell, 1936. The Yale University
Press, New Haven, CT p. 2.
Marble, Annie Russell. “A Group of Hartford Wits” in Heralds of American Literature; A Group
of Patriot Writers of the Revolutionary and National Periods. Bibliolife, LLC – Originally published by the University of Chicago Press, 1907. [Entrees on all of the figures studied in this unit.]
Parrington, Vernon L. [ed.,] The Connecticut Wits. New York, NY: Thomas Y.
Crowell Company, Inc., 1954. [Contains texts of M’Fingal and The Anarchiad.]
---Silverman, Kenneth. “Preface” [and “Introduction”] in [Parrington,] The Connecticut Wits, xv.
New York, NY: Thomas Y.Crowell Company, Inc., 1954.
Pencak, William; Dennis, Matthew; Newman, Simon. “Riot and Revelry in Early America”.
University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.
Piascik, Andy. The Connecticut Wits. https://connecticuthistory.org/the-hartford-wits/ Accessed:
July 15, 2017.
Tise, Larry E. “Yale College and World Revolution” in The American Counterrevolution: A
Retreat from Liberty 1783 – 1800. Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 1998.
Sheldon, F. “The Pleiades of Connecticut” in The Atlantic Monthly. F. Sheldon, February 1865.
ushistory.org. “Shays' Rebellion” in U.S. History Online Textbook, 2017.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/15a.asp. Accessed: July 12, 2017.
Wood, Gordon S. “Introduction” in The Radicalism of the American Revolution.
New York, NY: Vintage Books – Random House, Inc., 1991.
Resources for Teachers
Eric D. Lehman - I have tremendous respect for Mr. Lehman, as well as an author with whom he co-writes, Amy Nawrocki. The two seem to have a positive slant on the Wits and their rightful place as political activists more than just poets. Of particular value for those looking for a cogent argument for recasting them as patriots who were poets, Lehman’s Holes in the Canon: The Hartford Wits and Literary History, which can be found at http://queenmobs.com/2016/12/ hartford-wits-and-literary-history. The book they co-wrote, Literary Connecticut, was also insightful.
Annie Russell Marble - Writing from quite some distance in time, Marble’s perspective seems much like Mr. Lehman’s. Two of her books, Heralds of Literature, and The Hartford Wits, were quite helpful in researching this unit.
Michael D. Hattem - I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Hattem during the intensive summer session at Yale this summer, where he is finishing his dissertation called Past and Prologue: History and the Politics of Memory in the American Revolution. His insights on the Hartford Wits were nothing short of transformative. Over lunch, we started talking about this subject, especially the paradigm shift from Cabot to Columbus. We were almost still there when the dinner crowd was entering.
Henry A. Beers, Vernon L. Parrington and Leon Howard - Three historians on whose shoulders I’ve stood on for this unit, they, like Marble, are voices from the past with so much to say on the Hartford Wits and early American history. For those seeking information on Timothy Dwight, whose work is not covered in this curriculum unit, Howard’s book would prove especially helpful. Two of Dwight’s best-known works are Conquest of Canaan, a biblical allegory on the wresting of Connecticut from British control, and The Triumph of Infidelity, a scathing indictment of Jeffersonian democracy.
Joseph Ellis - Starting with his book, Founding Brothers, which I read near the beginning of my career, I have found his work to always be insightful and thought-provoking. For this unit, I focused more on The Quartet.
Pauline Meier - Another favorite historian, her work has a straightforward approach that I always find refreshing and quite readable. Sadly, Ratification was one of the last books she wrote before her death in 2013.
Larry Tise - For those looking for early American history from a Yale perspective, I found his book, The American Counter Revolution, invaluable. While Phillis Wheatley is relatively well-known for her poetic contributions (and rightly so), I was intrigued to find another African American poet, Jupiter Hammond. Tise includes an entire chapter on Black American Friends of Order.
Gordon S. Wood - I read three of his books in preparation for this unit. While I didn’t bring in much of his content, he is a historian for whom I have a great deal of respect. The books I read were The Radicalism of the American Revolution, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776 – 1787, and Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. These would be of great interest to anyone in search of an in-depth understanding of the political issues and intrigues around the founding of our nation.
William Goetzmann - I found him to be an expert on Enlightenment thought. His book, Beyond the Revolution: A History of American Thought from Paine to Pragmatism, contained a very insightful chapter called The Writer and the Republic.
Some other works that were of interest, even if some of them did not make it into the unit, would be: The Miscellaneous Works of Colonel Humphreys – David Humphreys; The Life and Times of David Humphreys - Frank Landon Humphreys; The First American Satirists – Olinnifred B. Hind; The Pleiades of Connecticut - F. Sheldon in The Atlantic Monthly - February 1865; The Hartford Wits – Andy Piascik; and for general political poetry, the anthology, The Faber Book of Political Verse – Tom Paulin.
Resources for Students
The following texts supply the poems that I am excerpting for my class activities. However, due to the infrequent demand for these books, online resources may prove more convenient.
The Miscellaneous Works of Colonel Humphreys. By David Humphreys, New York, NY: Bibliolife, LLC – Originally published by Hodge, Allen and Campbell. This reprinted book contains many of Humphreys’ poems. In addition, of course, to “An Address to the Armies of the United States of America,“ of particular value would be “A Poem on Industry“ (among other issues, denouncing the evils of slavery), “The Glory of America“ (an excellent example of the Rising Glory school), and “Sonnet XII - On Receiving the News of the Death of General Washington“ (an elegy that would sequence well during the study of the Federal era.)
Much of the rest of the Wits’ body of work can be found in Parrington’s The Connecticut Wits. For those wishing to access the works of other influential poets and writers of the period, such as Charles Brockden Brown and Philip Freneau, Marble’s Heralds of American Literature would prove helpful. Moreover, for a more feminine perspective on the Revolutionary era, the works of Mercy Otis Warren and Phillis Wheatley should be consulted and have considerable value. The additional reading recommended in this paragraph would be of complexity and length most appropriate at the high school level.
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