Zannieri and Martello on Paul Revere in Concord, 25 Feb.

On Tuesday, 25 February, the Concord Museum will host a lecture on “Paul Revere: The Man, the Myth, the Legacy.”

This presentation will be delivered jointly by:

• Nina Zannieri, Executive Director of the Paul Revere Memorial Association, which operates the Paul Revere House in the North End of Boston.
• Robert Martello, Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Olin College of Engineering and author of Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise.

Revere is, of course, best known for his ride on 18–19 Apr 1775, spreading word of the British army march. He did indeed do that, but his prominence in American culture derives from Henry W. Longfellow turning him into a legend in 1861. The Paul Revere House has to help visitors sort out the history from the myth.

Because the history is even more interesting, if not as poetic. Before the war Revere was a political activist, among the most prominent from the mechanics class. Afterwards, he was a leader in Massachusetts’s business community and an early factory owner, the portion of his life that Prof. Martello studies.

This situation produces a paradox: Revere deserves to be remembered and studied in American history. But he’s a household name for actions that he did only part of, and which may not have been that crucial in history.

For an example on a smaller scale, generations of American schoolchildren have heard Longfellow’s lines:

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

But Revere never made it to Concord on 19 April, much less to the North Bridge. He did, however, visit the town in the preceding week, carrying news that helped James Barrett decide to move the cannon and other ordnance on his farm farther away from Boston, and that stymied the British operation.

This event is scheduled to start at 7 P.M. It is free for Concord Museum members (though those seats might be sold out) and $10 for others. But it’s free to anyone who wants to tune in online.