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Analysis of Painting

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By the beginning of 1770, there were 4,000 British soldiers in Boston, a city with 15,000 inhabitants, and tensions were running high. On the evening of March 5, crowds of day laborers, apprentices, and merchant sailors began to pelt British soldiers with snowballs and rocks. A shot rang out, and then several soldiers fired their weapons. When it was over, five civilians lay dead or dying, including Crispus Attucks, an African American merchant sailor who had escaped from slavery more than twenty years earlier.

Produced just three weeks after the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere's historic engraving "The Bloody Massacre in King-Street" was probably the most effective piece of war propaganda in American history. Not an accurate depiction of the actual event, it shows an orderly line of British soldiers firing into an American crowd and includes a poem that Revere likely wrote. Revere based his engraving on that of artist Henry Pelham, who created the first illustration of the episode-and who was neither paid nor credited for his work.

Here are a few of the elements Paul Revere used in his engraving to shape public opinion:

The British are lined up and an officer is giving an order to fire, implying that the British soldiers are the aggressors.

The colonists are shown reacting to the British when in fact they had attacked the soldiers.

British faces are sharp and angular in contrast to the Americans' softer, more innocent features. This makes the British look more menacing.

The British soldiers look like they are enjoying the violence, particularly the soldier at the far end.

The colonists, who were mostly laborers, are dressed as gentlemen. Elevating their status could affect the way people perceived them.

The only two signs in the image that you can read are "Butcher's Hall" and "Customs House," both hanging directly over the British soldiers.

There is a distressed woman in the rear of the crowd. This played on eighteenth-century notions of chivalry.

There appears to be a sniper in the window beneath the "Butcher's Hall" sign.

Dogs tend to symbolize loyalty and fidelity. The dog in the print is not bothered by the mayhem behind him and is staring out at the viewer.

The sky is illustrated in such a way that it seems to cast light on the British "atrocity."

Crispus Attucks is visible in the lower left-hand corner. In many other existing copies of this print, he is not portrayed as African American.

The weather conditions depicted do not match the testimony presented at the soldier's trial (no snow).

The soldiers' stance indicates an aggressive, military posture.

Other Interesting Facts

In the first edition, the time on the clock was incorrect. Revere had it corrected immediately.

The trial of the British soldiers was the first time a judge used the phrase "reasonable doubt."

One of the British soldiers named Pierce Butler left the army and became a South Carolina plantation owner. In 1787, he was appointed as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

Questions for Discussion

Read the document introduction, apply your knowledge of American history, and closely examine the enlarged document image and the linked supplemental materials to answer these questions.

1. While there are many similarities in the engravings by Henry Pelham and Paul Revere, there are also significant differences. Carefully examine both documents and explain how they differ. Consider both the image of the event and the text at the top and bottom of both documents. A copy of Pelham's engraving can be found on the PBS Africans in America site.

2. Revere's document was well known at the time while Pelham's was less regarded. Over the years, Revere's painting has gained notoriety and has been frequently reproduced in textbooks and popular publications. How can this be explained?

3. An accurate transcript of the trial of the British officer and soldiers is available from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Compare the trial testimony to the image in either the Pelham or Revere work. How accurate are the engravings? Create a list of the discrepancies between the trial testimony and both images.

4. Why has this image been referred to frequently as a work of propaganda?

5. An in-class, mock-trial, role-playing activity could be developed using the two images, the testimony from the trial and encouraging students to view the segment of the HBO John Adams series concentrating on his defense of the soldiers at the trial and the Library of Congress page: John Adams and the Boston Massacre. Other images can be referred to as well:

A printer-friendly version is available here.

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Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770

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By the beginning of 1770, there were 4,000 British soldiers in Boston, a city with 15,000 inhabitants, and tensions were running high. On the evening of March 5, crowds of day laborers, apprentices, and merchant sailors began to pelt British soldiers with snowballs and rocks.

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Paul Revere did not mark his work using his signature, other numbers or letters, or with a picture of a horse and rider, or a patriot's head. Any silver marked in this way was not made in Revere's shop.

Revere made and repaired small items such as jewelry. There is no known marked jewelry made by Revere although several surviving gold rings are attributed to him. The jewelry was too small to bear the marks used on the silver.
Here's a sampling of the 5,000 silver objects made in Revere's shop (from his shop daybooks 1761-1783 and 1783-1797):
2,479 pieces of Flatware (mostly spoons) - 410 before the war (1761-1783) and 2069 after the war (1783-1797)

64 Teapots (some with stands) - 15 (1761-1783); 49 (1783-1797)

60 Creamers (creampots) - 23 (1761-1783); 37 (1783-1797)

89 Canns - 56 (1761-1783); 33 (1783-1797)

50 Sugar Tongs - 16 (1761-1783); 34 (1783-1797)

400 Buckles (mostly pairs) - approximately 201 (1761-1783) and 199 (1783-1797)

30 Porringers - 20 (1761-1783); 10 (1783-1797)

30 Ladles - 11 (1761-1783); 25 (1783-1797)

Although Revere's daybooks are the best source of information about what he made, keep in mind that there are known pieces of Revere silver that do not appear in the daybooks, such as his now-famous "Liberty Bowl," in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The shape of the Liberty Bowl has inspired many reproductions, called "Revere Bowls," which are often engraved as gifts or presentation pieces.

How expensive was Revere's silver?

Paul Revere's income fluctuated. Before the Revolution, it was as high as 294 pounds or as low as 11 pounds in any given year. As a successful master craftsman and shop owner, his average annual income was 85 pounds per year. A journeyman might earn 40-45 pounds per year, while a laborer in Boston would be lucky to take home 30 pounds with steady work.

In the early 1760s, a laborer earning 30 pounds per year might be able to afford a child's spoon for 8 shillings or a pair of silver knee buckles for 6 shillings 8 pence but not a coffee pot, worth over 17 pounds. Before buying his home in North Square, Paul Revere paid 16 pounds for an entire year's rent on a house.

A small creamer or creampot, cost 2 pounds, 2 shillings and 3 pence in 1762. At the same time, a teapot with a wooden handle, probably much like the one Revere is holding in the portrait by John Singleton Copley, cost 10 pounds, 16 shillings and 8 pence. In 1763, six teaspoons cost 9 shillings, while a pair of silver canns cost 3 pounds 6 shillings and 8 pence. In 1782, Revere charged 2 pounds 3 shillings for a pair of shoe buckles.

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Paul Revere did not mark his work using his signature, other numbers or letters, or with a picture of a horse and rider, or a patriot's head. Any silver marked in this way was not made in Revere's shop. Revere made and repaired small items such as jewelry.

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With fourteen memorable stanzas, American poet and ardent abolitionist Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized Old North Church and Paul Revere in American folklore and cemented their place in American history. This poem is perhaps the main reason that both are household names today. But who was Longfellow? Why did he write this poem and how did it elevate the status of Revere and Old North?

A celebrated and nationally beloved poet, Longfellow began his career at Bowdoin College as a student in the 1820s, then as a professor of modern languages in the 1830s. Longfellow spent several years in Europe where he studied nine different languages. He used his studies and experience abroad to translate European works into English back in the United States. Longfellow moved to Cambridge in 1836 to begin a language professorship at Harvard. By the early 1840s, his poetry found great success through publication in books and periodicals. Many of his works focused on political and moral issues of the day. Longfellow decided to tackle the Civil War, a major event during his lifetime, by making reference to the Revolutionary War in his famous poem Paul Revere's Ride.

Eighty-five years after Paul Revere's ride, the country was on the brink of the Civil War. The issues of slavery and states' rights threatened to tear the country apart. As Southern states prepared to secede from the Union, Northerners prepared to fight to preserve it. With war looming, Americans from the North and South were searching for inspiration for their cause. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the Old North Church on April 5, 1860 where he learned about Paul Revere's role with the signal lanterns. Intensely inspired by this visit, Longfellow immediately began writing a poem to rally Northerners and remind Southerners of their mutual Revolutionary past.

Longfellow specifically chose to focus his poem on the relatively unknown figure of Paul Revere. Using Revere as the hero, Longfellow appealed to Northern readers' patriotism. However, Longfellow knew that Revere's story would need some creative alterations to better suit the goals of his poem.

To make his poem more patriotic, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow changes the details of Paul Revere's story by taking some artistic liberties while preserving some truth. First, Longfellow frames Revere as the sole hero of his poem by purposely omitting other messenger riders. He knew that having only one hero demonstrated how one man can change history. Second, Longfellow tweaks historical record by altering Paul Revere's role with the signal lanterns. In a dramatic scene from the poem, Longfellow writes Revere as the recipient of the signal lanterns, rather than the sender. The lines read:

"One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

By making Revere the man seeing the lanterns "on the opposite shore" instead of the man sending them, Longfellow transforms the character of Revere into a messenger for the people rather than a Patriot spy. He also devotes several stanzas to Old North itself as the important location of the signal lanterns, which is historically accurate. Along with the number of riders and Paul Revere's location for the signal lanterns, Longfellow changed a number of other details about the night of April 18, 1775 in his poem Paul Revere's Ride.

Among these changes included the lengthening of the time frame of the ride itself. Revere's ride lasted a little more than two hours, whereas the poem specifies him riding through the night, a much more dramatic timeframe. Furthermore, Longfellow omitted the British capture of Revere between Lexington and Concord, a major historical alteration. Longfellow's poem would not have had the same patriotic impact or sense of urgency with a detained hero. Accordingly, Longfellow ignored some of the true events in favor of poetic license.

Literature often influences our understanding and interpretation of history as a society. Many American schoolchildren throughout the 19th and 20th centuries learned Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem and presumed it factual, a fallacy we challenge daily. Despite Longfellow's literary creativity with the actual history (available in the pews on the other side of the church), his poem secured Old North and Paul Revere a lasting place in American history and folklore. We credit him for our enduring fame, which shaped Old North into a national icon.
Paul Revere's Ride Listen, my children, and you shall hear Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street He has left the village and mounted the steep, It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

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Longfellow's Poem | The Old North Church

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With fourteen memorable stanzas, American poet and ardent abolitionist Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized Old North Church and Paul Revere in American folklore and cemented their place in American history. This poem is perhaps the main reason that both are household names today. But who was Longfellow?

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The true story about Paul Revere's ride.