‘The Revolution was televised’

    

The Petition by John Ward Dunsmore, oil on canvas, 1926. On exhibit in Washington’s Headquarters Museum in Morristown.

If you sneeze, you’d miss it, but there is a reference to Freemasonry in the recent Ken Burns documentary after all.

The American Revolution was broadcast on PBS last week, and I finally caught up to the closing episode, titled “The Most Sacred Thing (May 1780 – Onward),” today. The longest of the six parts, this chapter extends briefly beyond the Treaty of Paris to place the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in relation to the war.

Freemasonry is not spoken of. It is neither in the narration, nor the voice-acting, not even in any interview. It’s visual and quick. And a non-sequitur.

At the 35:06 mark, while the narrator explains a mutiny on January 1, 1781, when approximately 1,500 Continental soldiers from Pennsylvania, encamped near Morristown, New Jersey, rebelled over their typical meager living conditions and non-existent pay, we see a Worshipful Master in the East. The disgruntled troops aimed to march on Philadelphia “to confront Congress with their grievances.” They had six artillery pieces. Wisely, the Pennsylvania legislature acted first and agreed to most demands, particularly the back pay, and this rebellion within the Revolution was quelled.

I don’t know how John Ward Dunsmore’s painting, The Petition, was chosen to be the wallpaper during the telling of this bit of history. I wonder if there had been a minute devoted to Freemasons’ Revolutionary significance that was omitted for time, and this 18-second panning out shot of the painting was the only aspect to survive the editing.

revolutionarywarnewjersey.com

The detail about Morristown is the only connection, as the 59x46 oil on canvas from 1926 depicts a meeting in Morristown of American Union Lodge, a traveling military lodge from Connecticut, in deliberation over whether to organize a national grand lodge of Freemasons for the United States. This took place on St. John Evangelist Day 1779 in Arnold’s Tavern, although the scene painted looks to me larger and more fancy than what I’d guess Bro. Jacob Arnold’s venue really was.

Detail of The Petition. Click to enlarge.

The initiated eye will discern immediately this is a Masonic meeting. Worshipful Master Jonathan Hart is clearly seen seated in the East with the Master’s jewel about his neck. The Three Great Lights and Three Lesser Lights are in place, and the altar even seems to be the right size and shape for the period. George Washington is shown in profile seated in the north. He is known to have attended American Union in Morristown that day. (Click here if you have time.)

As a historical reference, The Petition is annoying as it depicts Alexander Hamilton and others who were not Masons in the scene, but, again, Dunsmore painted this in 1926, a time of great national patriotism in the country’s sesquicentennial year. The artist may have believed or hoped Hamilton and the others were Brothers. Masonic researchers then were even more rare than they are today, so there were too few sources of accurate information.

This is not the incorporation of Masonic history in this documentary I had hoped for, but it’s better than nothing, and there ought to have been something. I enjoyed the series overall, despite some errors and omissions. 

Click here for an introduction to this subject.

The Petition can be viewed in person in the Morristown National Historical Park’s museum, inside the Revolutionary Room of the Washington’s Headquarters Museum (the Ford Mansion), at 30 Washington Place. It is on indefinite loan from the New-York Historical Society.

And American Union Lodge? Yes, it is still at labor! It meets at Marietta, Ohio and will celebrate its own 250th anniversary in February. I’ll be there, and hope to see you.

     

‘The Revolution WILL be televised’

    

Documentarian Ken Burns will have his latest, The American Revolution, debuted on PBS in two weeks. It’s a long shot, but I am hoping some mention of Freemasonry will fit in the six-chapter, 12-hour series coming November 16.

It’s only fair. Many of his previous works involve historical Freemasons but do not mention the fraternity, such as The Statue of Liberty (1985), Lewis & Clark (1997), Mark Twain (2001), The Roosevelts (2014), and, most recently, Benjamin Franklin (2022). I’ve always believed his style of filmmaking would be ideal for a story about Freemasonry itself. He excels at telling of generational histories (Baseball, 1994; Jazz, 2001; Country Music, 2019) and epochal events (The Civil War, 1990; The War, 2007; The Vietnam War, 2017).

Who better to chronicle the adventures of a folkway that germinated in sixteenth century Scotland and spread around the globe, influencing cultures and societies everywhere while embracing the giants of Western Civilization? Many years ago, I emailed his office pitching that idea, but received no reply.

     

‘Ben Franklin gets the Burns treatment’

    

Benjamin Franklin, revered Freemason, Founding Father, inventor, natural philosopher, statesman, entrepreneur, and more, is the subject of a two-part biography by filmmaker Ken Burns. It can be seen starting next Monday on PBS television and streaming.

I am doubtful the film will say anything about Franklin’s Masonic association. He was a busy man who milked the utmost from his eighty-four years in this world, whereas Burns’ story runs four hours.

Ken Burns, in his forty-one years of producing documentaries, has touched the periphery of Masonic history many times. Some of his previous biographies (Lewis & Clark, Mark Twain, The Roosevelts) honed in on famous Masons, and many of his histories bump into the works of others (The Statue of Liberty, The National Parks). Then, of course, his epic anthropological films (Jazz, Baseball, Country Music) unavoidably discuss the lives and deeds of a number of Masons.

It was on that basis that I once emailed him about twenty years ago to pitch the idea of a film on Freemasonry. Granted, it’s a huge subject, but it encompasses story elements that figure into his documentaries. From the giants of history astride the globe, to folks you might know living their lives on Main Street—with race relations and women’s inclusion in the mix—human progress is encapsulated in the Masonic story. There is a bottomless inventory of archives and artifacts, material culture and ephemera, art and music to drive Burns’ use of photographs and movie reels that supplement his interviews, narration, and cinematography.

I never did hear back.

     

‘The Work for Awakened Attention’

     
The Gurdjieff Foundation of New York will offer another of its introductory events next month to explain a bit about its mystical teachings. This session, titled “The Work for Awakened Attention,” will be hosted Friday, October 7 at 6:30 p.m. inside the lecture hall of Quest Bookshop (240 East 53rd Street, between Second and Third, in Manhattan). If you want to check it out, do them a big favor and reserve your seat by e-mailing the organizers here.

After attending an introductory event, like this one, you have the option of delving a little further into the matter. On the following weekend, on Saturday, October 15, the group will host another event, including a screening of a Ken Burns film. The talk will be “A Way of Life,” and the film is Vézelay, made by Burns in 1995, and this will take place in The Sheen Center (Studio A), located at 18 Bleecker Street, from 4 to 5:30. RSVP here.

Click to enlarge.