What Is The Thesis Of Citizen Tom Paine By Howard Fast

Emma Greathouse
Period 9
Mr. Pratt
GOAL History 9
November 29, 2016
Section One
Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast is the lengthy, descriptive account of the life of one of the most influential authors in America’s time, Thomas Paine. Paine was a middle aged, scrappy, hungry, and poor shell of a man. This novel goes back to the very beginning of Paine’s journey when he met with a Dr. Benjamin Franklin in the fall of 1774 to discuss Paine’s getting a job as a staymaker in America. He traveled on a ship ridden with fever for 9 weeks, and by the end of this trip, he himself was sick and dying. He received treatment once in Philadelphia and fully recovered. Once healed, he searched for a job to pay off his debt to the doctor. He got a job as a teacher

He was viewed as a dirty street rat. The publishers assumed that no one would read his works, and they did not want to lose money. He eventually found Robert Aitken, who published some of his writing. Even Aitken lost faith in Paine eventually though. He would not publish Thomas’s Reflections on Titles and so they split ways. Aitken does refer Paine to Bobby Bell, which proves to be a successful endeavor. Bell agrees to publish Paine’s next work, and that just so happens to be Common Sense. As word gets out, more people are copying and spreading his pamphlet. It gained so much popularity that anywhere he went and simply stated his name, he was recognized. More common folk agreed with the ideas expressed in his book than he had ever thought possible. He soon shed his street rat title and became almost famous. Then, he decided to go to England to spread his ideas

The setting quickly switched to America, where the wisps of revolution had just begun to appear. The people were thinking of revolution because of the unfair way Great Britain was treating America. To attempt to curb this treatment, America threw the Boston Tea Party. This was where a group of Bostonians stopped ships that were bringing (heavily taxed) tea to Boston ports, and dumped all 342 crates (Staff history.com) into the Boston Harbor. In response to this, Britain put the Coercive Acts into place. The Coercive Acts state, in simple terms, stated that the Americans had to house and take care of however many soldiers Britain sent over, the Boston Port was no longer able to be used, British officials could freely escape any trial, and town meetings were almost illegal (unknown u-s-history.com). This really made America