During the American Revolution, Americans were not only fighting for independence. They were also trying to imagine what their new nation would look like. Revolutionary leaders such as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington helped promote powerful visual symbols—from flags and seals to allegorical figures like Liberty—that expressed the ideals of the emerging United States and helped unite a diverse population around a shared identity. At the same time, writers such as the enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley and radical voices like Abigail Adams used words and imagery to challenge Americans to think about who should be included in this new nation. This talk explores how a wide range of Americans helped create the symbols and ideas that allowed people to imagine—and ultimately bring into being—the United States. Edward J. Blum is a professor of nineteenth-century United States History in the History Department at San Diego State University. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. His research, writing, and teaching involve politics, constitutionalism, war, society, and culture in the United States from the founding of the nation through the era of the Civil War. He has particular interests in how numerical information, data, demography, statistics, and the Census play roles in shaping the course of United States history. Professor Blum is committed to both top-notch scholarship and reaching out to the broader public. He is the author and co-author of several books including "War is All Hell: The Nature of Evil and the Civil War" (2021), "Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898" (2005; reissued 2015), "W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet" (2007), and "The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America" (2012). For these, he has won the C. Vann Woodward Prize from the Southern Historical Association, the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship, the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities, and the John T. Hubbell Prize for best article published in Civil War History in 2015. Publicly, Blum has authored pieces for the New York Times, CNN, the Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, and many other outlets. He is also the Project Director for the American Revolution and Constitution History Project at SDSU, which looks to energize civic and patriotic reflection in San Diego.
