Date
5-20-2026
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)
Chair
Jared Tracy
Keywords
Grief, Founding Fathers, Loss
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Desmond, Michael S., "“What so many Millions before us have borne”: Loss, Grief, and the Revolutionary Turn of the Founding Father" (2026). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 8444.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/8444
Abstract
Loss, instability and grief provided a crucial interpretative framework for understanding George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, particularly in the years surrounding their emergence as revolutionaries in the early 1770s. Rather than treating their political commitments to the Whigs as the product of ideology alone, this study argues that deeply personal experiences with setbacks and loss shaped the crucial timing of their decisions to become revolutionaries.
For Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, grief was not a single event followed by an emotional response; it was a formative process that began with the setbacks and losses of their childhoods. In adolescence, they did not shed this adversity but carried it forward, reshaping it through early adult efforts to build identities, relationships, and careers. Early adulthood functioned as a decisive transitional phase, linking formative vulnerability to the weight of adult responsibility. By the early 1770s, as imperial tensions sharpened, deeply personal losses collided with escalating political demands, producing a volatile moment of deep unease.
This study contends that their reluctance to openly oppose British policy prior to 1773 stemmed less from ideological moderation than from the stabilizing strictures of family, profession, and reputation. Major personal losses suffered between 1773 and 1774 destabilized their lives and routines. In the aftermath, Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin each exhibited unique patterns of coping and adaptation. Private grief, shaped by temperament and experience, hardened earlier caution into sustained political resolve.
By situating the timing of their revolutionary involvement within established theories of bereavement, this dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate that personal loss functioned not merely as background context but as a catalyst for revolutionary involvement and leadership. Ultimately, this work reframes the American Revolution as not only a political rupture for all three men but also a deeply human process. It is a story of how three of its most prominent figures responded to loss and found renewed purpose amidst the grieving process.
