Product Details

• Format: Black & White, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Mpi Home Video
• VHS Release Date: March 25, 1997
• Run Time: 40 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6304438990
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #373,440 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Words of the Founding Fathers come alive for students, January 20, 2002

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Speeches of Founding Fathers & American Revolution [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Being by education a rhetorician, I think the study of American History is served better by paying more attention to the political oratory of whatever period is being studied. However, "The Speeches of Our Founding Fathers & the American Revolution" includes not only speeches but political documents as well. Included are presentations of the following: (1) Patrick Henry's celebrated speech to the Virginia House of Commons, "Liberty or Death"; (2) A speech by Peter Thatcher, a clergyman in Watertown, Connecitcutt, on the "ambition of princes" to violate rights; (3) George Washington's words to the troops before the fateful Battle of Long Island; (4) The opening sections of "The Declaration of Independence" written by Thomas Jefferson; (5) Excerpts from Thomas Paine's "The American Crisis"; (6) Washington's "Farewell to the Troops" in 1783; (7) Comments from Benjamin Franklin; and (8) Comments from Paine while living in France after the Revolution.

Almost as fascinating as listening to the recreation of these spirited words are the images appearing on the screen, which consist entirely of drawings, cartoons, etchings and paintings, most of which are contemporaneous with the American Revolution; there are some works clearly from a later period and some black & white film clips of recreated battles and settlers carving out America from the wildneress. Just collecting these pictures for this endeavor is rather impressive. I would like to acknowledge those who recreated the speeches, but, unfortunately, they are not identified on the videotape.

I might have liked to have seen a couple of other works included, such as John Hancock's "Boston Massacre Oration" and even William Pitt, The Elder, Earl of Chatham on "The Right of Taxing America" to over a interesting counterpoint, but I have to admit that what is included on this videotape is of great utility to American History classes studying the Revolutionary War. I might want them to actually read the words written by Jefferson and Paine, but at the very least teachers can use this tape to let students hear a couple of speeches. The Henry speech is the obvious example, but I think the Thatcher speech is the newly uncovered gem here. All of these "speeches" are relatively brief; playing one or two of them for your students is not going to come close to boring them.

However, I have to point out one of the great ironies in the field of American oratory: the famous speech delivered by Patrick Henry to the Virginia House of Burgresses in 1775 was reconstructed in 1817 by Henry's biographer, William Wirt, who based his rendition of the speech on reported interviews with people who had attended the Virginia Convention more than forty years earlier. Henry left no extant text of the speech and we have only scanty records of the Virginia Convention. Consequently, with the exception of Shakespeare's version of Antony's funeral oration for Julius Caesar, Patrick Henry's speech may well be the most famous "made up" speech in history.