JIGSAW GENS
Liberty Babes — The Yellow Fever Microgeneration
As the youngest Madisonians and the oldest Unimpressionists, this cusp built institutions and culture from the American Revolution up through the Civil War
Most of us can relate to how dehumanizing it feels when someone reduces you to nothing more than your numerical age. But it isn’t just that mean-spirited sensation — it’s the reality that they’re fostering a culture where generational similarities form “cliques” or “tiers” that exclude others from sharing their creativity…or their expertise…or their humanity.
Whether this happens in the workplace, on the social scene, or within classroom settings — it’s harmful, and it needs to stop. Despite the fact that I’m not some famous influencer, I’m still doing my part to put these damaging dynamics in perspective. After all, ageism is nothing new. We can see it when it happens in the present day…but it’s been going on ever since humans could walk and grunt.
Via my anthological series called “Jigsaw Gens” — I sketch out the chronology of age-based tensions through an American lens. By examining the fluid spectrum of our history, my hope is that people will think twice before continuing those toxic patterns.
I’ve identified these 27 primary generational categories:
Parliamentarians | Concentrics | Inflectors
Kingdomites | Cavaliers | Magnas
Glory Warriors | Lumineers | Enlightening Rods
Septennials | Liberty Lords | Goodpublicans
Madisonians | Unimpressionists | Transcendentals
Redeemers | Golden Renegades | Stowegressives
Missionaries | Hemingrebels | GI-Gens
Traditionalists | Baby Boomers | GenXers
Millennials | Zoomers | Alphas
“Generations,” as vaguely and blandly as they often get defined, aren’t a hard science. There tends to be broad consensus as to the middle portions of which a specific generation’s range may span. Yet, it would be foolhardy to assume we can pin down these generations with exact precision.
To ease the transition between primary generations, I embrace the concept of “microgenerations” — essentially, these are buffer zones in which people who feel as though they fall through the cracks between larger generations can enjoy being “on the cusp” while embracing the best of both worlds.
In my ongoing look at which “cusps” may exist, I’ve been progressing on a tour of those who’ve straddled these lines throughout American history. For children born in the late-1770s and early-1780s, I’ve designated their cusp as the Liberty Babes.
Who They Are
Liberty Babes were born approximately between 1776 to 1780 — give or take a couple of years on either end. They were comprised of the youngest Madisonians and the oldest Unimpressionists. Their birthyears fell smack in the opening stretch of the American Revolution, as the Cherokee-American Wars were fought and the Articles of Confederation were drafted.
During adolescence, they prepared for adulthood amidst the Northwest Indian War and George Washington’s presidency. Their late-thirties through late-forties ran alongside of the “Era of Good Feelings.” Much like the Cradled Explorers, all three Seminole Wars occurred during the Liberty Babes’ lifetimes…as did the Trail of Tears and the California Gold Rush.
Liberty Babes were the first microgeneration into which none of the Founding Fathers were born. Since they were children during the Revolutionary War, most of the military veterans from the Liberty Babe cusp fought in the War of 1812; its veterans included Mordecai Myers, Jean Lafitte, Elisha Riggs, John Hartwell Cocke, George Armistead, William M. Crane, David Campbell, Andrew Pickens Jr., William B. Bulloch, Edward Lucas, and future Vice-President Richard Mentor Johnson.
I refer to Liberty Babes as “the Yellow Fever Microgeneration” because America’s yellow fever epidemics hit when they were teenagers or twentysomethings — at their peak health. This cusp also got swept up in the psychological “fever” of being obsessed with gold prospecting, much later in their lives. Their oldest members persevered into the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.
Their Early Lives
Liberty Babes were born at the onset of the Revolutionary War. These soon-to-be United States had already experienced the First and Second Continental Congresses, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the rise of its Continental Navy. That meant, as infants, they were learning to walk and talk while their elders beheld the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Mason-Dixon Line’s expansion, and the constant danger faced by Patriots such as Nathan Hale.
Families raising this microgeneration would retell the war’s highs and lows: from the morale-busting Battle of Camden to the adrenaline-pumping Siege of Yorktown. By the time Liberty Babes moved from toddlerhood into pre-pubescence, 1783’s Treaty of Paris would have lifted Patriots to victory over the Tories.
Still, there were quite a few additional momentous developments of which Liberty Babes retained more fleeting memories, as they prepared to become teenagers. The Congress of the Confederation was America’s earliest form of government — followed by 1787’s Constitutional Convention (resulting in signage of the U.S. Constitution itself).
A primitive display of populism would surface via Shays’ Rebellion. Once the Constitution’s first draft was in place, Federalists and Democratic-Republicans split into factions providing a rough model for America’s two-party political system.
When They Came-of-Age
Because so many of their Liberty Lord, Goodpublican, and Madisonian parents died during the Revolutionary War, Liberty Babes had one of the lowest overall populations in American history. This reality was also the result of stagnant life expectancy rates throughout this cohort’s entire lives. As kids, many of them would die from America’s epidemic of yellow fever; others would be casualties of the Quasi-War against France.
Forging into adolescence, Liberty Babes came to know a puerile new country that was finding its way during George Washington’s two terms in the White House (which would soon move from Philadelphia to D.C., as a result of the Compromise of 1790). The United States began to form a national identity with Whiskey Rebellion dissenters quelled while the U.S. Navy was founded and strengthened.
But federal power could prove to go too far. The Alien and Sedition Acts led to the downfall of President John Adams, with the disputed presidential election of 1800 in its aftermath. Washington’s death cast a pall over the country. Slaughter of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw tribes fueled systemic racism.
Most of the White men from the Liberty Babe cohort were old enough to vote in that presidential race between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. With Jefferson branding it as a “revolution,” they were eager to try recreating the Spirit of ’76 about which their parents had reminisced. There was also a small minority of women who were allowed to vote in this election, based on their husbands’ statuses as landowners…until this right got revoked.
Overall, Liberty Babes emerged into young adulthood during a very distinct time in America’s history. Popular sentiment against the French had intensified. “Lantern shows” and film development were in their infantile stages — planting the seeds for American entertainment culture. And President Jefferson restored popularity to the presidency with actions such as the Louisiana Purchase and his protectionist offense against the Barbary pirates.
How They Shaped The World
Now raising children of their own, Liberty Babes reared their offspring amidst a growing redux of American/British tensions. The fatal duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr signaled to Americans how they needed to overcome division. Passage of the Twelfth Amendment (clarifying electoral procedures) and the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark contributed to shoring up a clearer national identity.
Furthermore, inhabitants of the North American continent savored the prospect of faster waterway travel as The Clermont (eventually renamed the North River Steamboat) boosted river transportation. Construction began on the National Road. These unifying events led up to the War of 1812 against Great Britain — where the English failed to take back the country they’d once governed, as the Battle of New Orleans spelled their decisive defeat.
Slavery and Indigenous removal continued to decay America’s novice foundation. In the first decade of the new century, Ohio’s “Black Laws” placed all residents of African descent under draconian rule. The 1811 German Coast Uprising was one of the most famous examples of slave revolts that pushed back against this blatant American system of racial apartheid.
Tribal Nations likewise found themselves under attack. Fletcher v. Peck, an 1810 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, set a precedent for additional seizures of Indigenous land by the U.S. government. Shawnee warriors were defeated at the Battle of Tippecanoe; likewise, the Muscogee lost the First Creek War. Anti-Latine sentiments in the United States sprouted as the Monroe Doctrine grew prevalent.
Liberty Babes were fortysomethings when President James Monroe embarked upon his Great Goodwill Tour. Harvard Law School gave prestige to the legal profession. But, even as promising as the 1810s may have seemed to some, the next decade would prove far more tumultuous. Americans tasted their first major economic depression during the Panic of 1819. Five years later, new fractures appeared once President-elect John Quincy Adams was handed the presidency after losing the popular vote to Andrew Jackson.
Continental growth was a big emphasis for the United States, in this era. 1818’s Jackson Purchase sold Chickasaw lands to swell the borders of Kentucky and Tennessee. The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 transferred Florida from Spanish to American control — providing a context for Americans to view Latin America as “inferior.” And then there was 1820’s Missouri Compromise, which expanded the Mason-Dixon Line westward.
By the third decade of the new century, the Liberty Babe cohort had produced five U.S. Supreme Court justices: John McKinley, Henry Baldwin, Robert Trimble, Joseph Story, and Chief Justice Roger Taney. This microgeneration’s best-known authors included Francis Scott Key, Margaret Bayard Smith, James Kirk Paulding, and Clement Clarke Moore.
Liberty Babes enhanced American entrepreneurship — Thomas Richie’s journalism, fur trading by William Henry Ashley, edifice construction from Stephen Whitney, participation from Nathan Appleton in the investor class, Joseph Warren Revere’s success in mining, Oliver Ames Sr.’s shovel shops, and maritime trading courtesy of Dudley Leavitt Pickman.
Their microgeneration continued augmenting theatre performances by actors and singers — Charlotte Wrighten Placide, Juliana Westray, Charlotte Baldwin, and William B. Wood exuded major stage presence via their live shows.
Other Liberty Babes sparked assorted forms of innovation. Amos Eaton was a forerunner in teaching natural sciences (especially botany). Zebulon Pike chronicled his exploration of the Red River Valley and Rocky Mountains. In the mold of Ben Franklin’s polymath legacy, Micah Hawkins found success with playwriting, poetry, and musical composition.
In fact, by the mid-Nineteenth Century, a host of Liberty Babes had made their mark on American music as composers or instrumentalists: Charles Steward Ashworth, Oliver Shaw, George Schetky, Philip Trajetta, and Joseph Funk (with the latter having developed the shape note system).
Their microgeneration added to the minds and voices mobilizing against slavery — Gabriel Prosser’s turn-of-the-century rebellion, William Costin battling slave codes in the courtroom, and Eufrosina Hinard buying slaves in order to help them purchase their own freedom.
Throughout the regime of President Jackson, Liberty Babes (now in their fifties) saw more flashes of the future. As documented by Medium’s John Thorn, Philadelphia’s Olympic Base Ball Club gave legs to America’s soon-to-be favorite pastime. The Tom Thumb steamboat brought greater legitimacy to commandeering waterways. A political realignment occurred as Whigs and Jacksonian Democrats took over the two-party system. And, perhaps most illustrative of forthcoming rifts, Nat Turner’s rebellion would sharpen the power struggle between supporters and opponents of slavery.
Closing out the 1830s, the Battle of the Alamo became ensconced in the American story. Yet, it was largely based on mythical folklore that portrayed Sam Houston and Davy Crockett as heroic crusaders. In actuality, Tejanos contributed to the Alamo’s defense — but their participation has been erased. Similarly, the Mexican government was opposed to slavery…on which Stephen F. Austin (aka the “Father of Texas”) fought them, tooth and nail.
As the Creek Nation fought its second war against the U.S. government, the Panic of 1837 devastated Americans with another round of bank failures.
Their Golden Years
At this juncture, members of the Liberty Babe cusp had greatly elevated art culture in America. Their artistic emphases were diverse: neoclassicism by Rembrandt Peale; the Romantic Victorian portraits from Jacob Eichholtz; copious miniatures churned out by Anson Dickinson; the Quaker-style brushstrokes of Edward Hicks; and landscape painting as pioneered by Washington Allston.
For the Liberty Babes who made it to their seventies, they saw the spread of Manifest Destiny being popularized by President James Polk. As the gold rush heated up, the Mexican-American War stoked hatred against Chicano people. More settlers flocked west, homesteading in Texas, Oregon Territory, and the Southwest (encouraged by the Gadsden Purchase).
These senior citizens watched women’s suffrage break through the public consciousness after the Seneca Falls Convention. The 1850s ushered in even more contentious battles over slavery and states’ rights — with the Compromise of 1850, publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the dissolution of the Whig Party hastening America’s inevitable trajectory toward its Civil War.
Some of the Liberty Babes lived long enough to see the American Civil War (or its resolution). In the decade leading up to the Union/Confederate split, John Brown and Dred Scott had become avatars for America’s internal conflict. The Panic of 1857 depressed the world on a global level, even as Americans gained excitement over baseball.
And then…North vs. South turned into the battle of that century.
It ended with President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Those who survived the Civil War entered the period of American Reconstruction. Some Indigenous Tribal Nations still resisted imperial rule, whereas Black people fought for equality in the aftermath of slavery’s abolition.
Most of the Liberty Babes died before Reconstruction ended; only the very eldest of their cohort saw Black men be granted the right to vote through the Fifteenth Amendment. Notable events of the late-1860s included the Alaska Purchase, completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, and President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment.
Here are 10 prominent Americans from the Liberty Babe cohort:
Members of the previous microgenerations were named…
Colonial Zygotes | Turnip Squeezers | Starving Timers
Long Climbers | Rumpus Rebels | Emerald Knights
Royal Raiders | Pre-Continentals | Bottled Beacons
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