I love history. It’s a passion of mine that I haven’t had a chance to explore in complete, but is on my to do list. The 4th of July is a great holiday. It is actually one of my favorite holidays.
Films over the recent years have started become more and more accurate and educational. Here are my 3 picks for the most worthy of your time.
#1 ‘John Adams’ – John Adams is a 2008 American television miniseries chronicling most of U.S. President John Adams’s political life and his role in the founding of the United States. Paul Giamatti portrays John Adams. The miniseries was directed by Tom Hooper. Kirk Ellis wrote the screenplay based on the book John Adams by David McCullough. The biopic of John Adams and the story of the first fifty years of the United States was broadcast in seven parts by HBO between March 16 and April 20, 2008. John Adams received widespread critical acclaim and many prestigious awards. The show won four Golden Globe awards and thirteen Emmy awards, more than any other miniseries in history. This miniseries is EXCELLENT! The film has six chapters which focus on different parts of his journey with our young country.
Here is a great taste:
The next movie is that ranks
#2 is The Sons Of Liberty. On December 1773, a new group calling itself the Sons of Liberty issued and distributed a declaration in New York City called the Association of the Sons of Liberty in New York, which formally stated that they were opposed to the Tea Act and that anyone who assisted in the execution of the act was “an enemy to the liberties of America” and that “whoever shall transgress any of these resolutions, we will not deal with, or employ, or have any connection with him”Samuel Adams political writer, tax collector, cousin of John Adams, fire warden. Founded the Sons Of Liberty, Boston.
- Joseph Allicocke – One of the leaders of the Sons in New York, and possibly of African ancestry.
- Benedict Arnold – businessman, later General in the Continental Army and then the British Army
- Timothy Bigelow – blacksmith, Worcester
- John Brown – business leader of Providence, Rhode Island
- John Crane – carpenter, Colonel in command of the 3rd Continental Artillery Regiment, Braintree
- Benjamin Edes – journalist/publisher Boston Gazette, Boston
- Christopher Gadsden – merchant, Charleston, South Carolina
- John Hancock – merchant, smuggler, fire warden, Boston
- Patrick Henry – lawyer, Virginia
- John Lamb – trader, New York City
- Alexander McDougall – captain of privateers, New York City
- Hercules Mulligan – tailor, spy under George Washington for the Continental Army, friend of Alexander Hamilton
- James Otis – lawyer, Massachusetts
- Charles Willson Peale – portrait painter and saddle maker, Annapolis, Maryland
- Paul Revere – silversmith, fire warden, Boston
- Benjamin Rush – physician, Philadelphia
- Isaac Sears – captain of privateers, New York City
- Haym Salomon – financial broker, New York and Philadelphia
- James Swan – American patriot and financier, Boston
- Isaiah Thomas – printer, Boston then Worcester, first to read Declaration of Independence in Massachusetts
- Charles Thomson – tutor, secretary, Philadelphia
- Joseph Warren – doctor, soldier, Boston
- Thomas Young – doctor, Boston
- Marinus Willett – cabinetmaker, soldier, New York
- Oliver Wolcott – lawyer, Connecticut
The miniseries centers primarily on the years (1765-1776) prior to start of the American Revolutionary War. Focusing on historical figures and pivotal events between the (then) British Colonies and the mother country of Great Britain to whom then British America owed its allegiance. Particularly the events that led to resistance to the crown and creation of the Sons of Liberty, a group that coalesced to resist & disrupt attempts by the British Parliament and crown to tax and govern the colonies.
Watch this extended look:
#3 Backstairs at The White House. Not everyone of the great films surrounded the Revolution. There is a miniseries that was the predecessor to ‘The Butler’. Behind the scenes at the White House during eight administrations, as told by the people who work there. The film begins on JFK’s inauguration day, Lilian Rogers Park gets together with her old friend Levi Mercer to watch the ceremony on television. Lillian’s mother Maggie started working at the White House as a maid in 1909. Her husband Emmett is away more than he is home but living in a one room apartment above an undertakers, she provides a good home to Lillian and her son Emmett Jr. Maggie feels honored just working at the White House and finds a welcoming atmosphere there from Mrs. Jaffrey, the Housekeeper, who lays down the rules – especially that there be no gossiping about the First Family- and the Chief Usher, Ike Hoover. Maggie is an accomplished beautician and is soon fixing Mrs. Taft’s hair. Young Lillian has a chance encounter with President Taft and invites her to dine with him. Her son soon has a job at the White as a gardener’s helper but Maggie decides to send Lillian to a boarding school. Maggie wears a brace on her leg but is devastated when she is told after an operation that from then on, she will have to use crutches. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson moves into the White House and Alicia gets a job sewing and mending. The first Mrs. Wilson’s death casts a pall over the entire household. Emmett Jr. Joins the army and ends up in Europe. After Wilson has a stroke, his wife quietly assumes most of his duties. In 1921, the Hardings move into the White House. The episodes takes you up through the presidencies of Roosevelt, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman and Eisenhower.
Here is Leslie Uggams talking about her time working on the mini series.