Exercise:  Paul Revere as Artisan and Revolutionary

Instructions: Navigate to “The Paul Revere House” site at respective URL below, then examine the various areas of the site, especially the sections on Revere's biography, “the midnight ride” and Revere's career as a silversmith. Then answer the following questions below.

Visit URL: “The Paul Revere House”

Question 1:  What types of goods did Revere produce, and from what socio-economic groups did he draw his clientele? What did Revere's status as a master craftsman do for his social standing? List the specific evidence from Revere's case that might help us draw broader conclusions about artisans and their social position in colonial cities.

Question 2:  How do you think Revere's status as a master craftsman contributed to his leadership within the Sons of Liberty and Boston's revolutionary movement?

Question 3:  Read both Revere's own account of the famous “midnight ride” of April 1775 and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem “Paul Revere's Ride.” How does Longfellow embellish the story, and for what purposes? Which audience do you think each selection was intended for? How did that shape the accounts given by both Revere and Longfellow?

Question 4:  What does Paul Revere's ride tell us about the organization and goals of Boston's revolutionary leadership? What specific pieces of evidence help us, as historians, to do this?

Question 5:  Why do you think Paul Revere's Ride has become such an important piece of the way in which we remember the American Revolution? How significant was the ride, in actuality, for understanding the battles of Lexington and Concord?