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The midterm examination will be given in class on Monday, November 3. On Wednesday, we will consider the War for Independence as a military event and analyze the unheaval and disruptions that warfare inflicted on common men and women. Assisting us in this study is a film, a dramatic feature film rather than a documentary, Mary Silliman's War, which is based on a book by Joy Day Buel and Richard Buel, Jr., The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America (New York, 1984). The film follows (with some poetic license) the true life story of Mary Fish Silliman and her family, of Fairfield, Connecticut, from May 1779 to April 1780. Consider as you watch, how and why Americans embraced or rejected the cause of Independence and the war. Why did men and women become involved in the struggle? Why does it seem at times like a civil war, pitting neighbor against neighbor? How and to what extent did the war disrupt people's lives? How did it serve or undermine their various interests? How glorious was the Glorious Cause of the Revolution?

Film (Nov. 5): Mary Silliman's War
The film, Mary Silliman's War, will be screened in class over two days.

Treat the film as an alternative way of learning and knowing about the American Revolution. Like those essays among our reading assignments written by historians, the film is a secondary rather than a primary source. It does not give us immediate access to the subject (as newsreel or documentary footage might); rather, it offers us a representation or interpretation of what happened. As an interpretation, it might be quite enlightening, credible, and convincing. Nonetheless, viewers need to maintain a certain critical stance, evaluating the film in relation to primary sources and other interpretive works. Follow this link to study questions on Mary Silliman's War.