Scott Nadler
Inconvenient Founders: Thomas Young and the Forgotten Disrupters of the Revolution
For all we study of “the Founders,” we overlook some of the most interesting, and maybe most important, people: The disruptors, the organizers, the agitators who tore down British rule and created the openings for the Founders. By looking at one agitator in particular, Thomas Young, maybe the Zelig of the Revolution, we get a tour of the Revolution from the bottom up, a tale that connects Ethan Allen, the Boston Massacre, the Tea Party, and the Declaration of Independence, and ends in censure! Fascination with this topic came from the disconnect between what university history taught about the Revolution and what hands-on experience in political organizing showed.
[Recorded August 13, 2022.]
Scott Nadler (nadlerhistory@gmail.com, nadlerstrategy.com, practical-sustainable-strategy.ghost.io) has had a fifty-year career in politics, government, industry, consulting, and academics, working in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. He has presented at Boston, Denver and National History Camps. He serves as Senior Fellow with the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI), and as a Board member of The Keshi Foundation, a public non-profit providing sustainable pathways promoting Zuni arts, education and economy while respecting the traditions and lifeways of the Zuni People. He is also a docent in the Walking Tours of Historic Downtown Santa Fe. And he is the Program Director for The Pursuit of History: Santa Fe in October 2024.