Phil Reisman has an excellent column up over at the Journal News web site, an article that ran over the weekend, that uses our exclusive report on the decision to relocated the collection at the Thomas Paine Museum in New Rochelle to the New York Historical Society in New York City as a departure point to explore why Thomas Paine has never been accorded his due in the pantheon of Founding Fathers.
Thomas Paine deserves a bigger place in history
If he were alive today, Paine would probably have a blog and a show on MSNBC. No doubt, he would spout convincing arguments as to why the do-nothing state Legislature ought to be abolished.
Part of Paine’s problem, from the standpoint of history’s view of him, was that he had no superficially attractive qualities. An English transplant at age 37, he wasn’t tall and good-looking like Washington and Jefferson. Paine had a big nose and hung out with the hoi polloi.
Read the whole thing here.
The Thomas Paine Cottage is angling to get their hands on the museum’s former collection which might make sense if they had some space to properly display the collection. It might also helpful if they had a better track record of promoting Paine and the Cottage. This past Fourth of July weekend the Cottage was closed. Does that many any sense for a supposed tourist attraction so intimately connected to the Declaration of Independence? Compare to an event held at the John Jay estate, a Founding Father but far less well-known than Paine:
Declaration of Independence read at John Jay estate
I would argue that the Paine compound including the Cottage is among the most poorly marketed historical site of genuine significance in the United States. What good would be accomplished by rewarding such an under-achieveing institution?
