Document Type
Thesis
Date of Degree Completion
Fall 2023
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
Committee Chair
Marilyn Levine
Second Committee Member
Dan Herman
Third Committee Member
Josué Estrada
Abstract
This thesis examines the Loyal Twenty-Seven, a group of Massachusetts revolutionaries, and their importance in the American Revolution using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods combined with traditional historical research, to attempt to show that there was a generational shift in leadership between the revolutionaries who led early British protests, and those who led the Revolutionary War and the Early Republic. This thesis is based off an original work, the United States Colonial Dataset, made up of 416 individuals divided into three groups, the Framers, Prominents, and Loyalists, and 215 unique attributes for these individuals, such as their occupation, age, birth and death place, military service, and more. From this dataset, two subsets were created, the Loyal Twenty-Seven dataset (L27), and the Massachusetts59 dataset, the former of which examines only the L27, and the latter of which examines individuals born in Massachusetts as a comparative baseline for L27 in comparison to their colonial contemporaries. An integrated approach is utilized that includes qualitative and quantitative analysis, as well as network and geospatial analyses. Network and cluster analyses of these datasets are used to examine leadership in the American Revolution in a new light.
Recommended Citation
Cassidy, Kevin, "Generational Leadership in the American Revolution and Early Republic, 1763-1800" (2023). All Master's Theses. 1907.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd/1907