Explore July 2024 articles from The Beacon, the Thomas Paine Historical Association’s bi-monthly journal. Each issue features multiple original articles written by a diverse group of leading Thomas Paine scholars, historians, and experts. Together, these contributions examine Paine’s life, writings, and enduring influence while connecting his ideas on liberty, democracy, and human rights to the political and social issues of today.
Celebrating the 2024 bicentennial of Lafayette’s visit to New Rochelle, the Thomas Paine National Historical Association (TPNHA) and the Huguenot & New Rochelle Historical Association (H&NRHA) in cooperation with the American Friends of Lafayette (AFL) and the City of New Rochelle will offer free events.
Bicentennial of the ‘Farewell Tour’ by the Marquis de Lafayette Read Post »
Paine’s Agrarian Justice most resonates with my own personal sensibilities. He says, “Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has operated two ways, to make one part of society more affluent, and the other part more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.”
Historians are challenged to remain ambivalent when writing about multi-layered Paine. We have Paine the political strategist, the enlightened idealist and utopian, the religious heretic, the economist, the journalist, the inventor, and humanitarian. Paine was vilified, idolized and all in between.
Frances Wright has been called the “female Thomas Paine.” In important ways, she was. Fanny Wright was the first American feminist, a radical abolitionist, labor champion, powerful public orator, and one of the first philosophers making a public case for freethought.
Frances (Fanny) Wright: ‘The Female Thomas Paine’ Read Post »
