Memorializing the Republic of Failure

Abstract

This chapter examines the writings of a struggling working-class mechanic named John Fitch (1743–1798), who believed his was the genius to have discovered the ability to use steam power for mechanized automation. Fitch wrote an uncirculated multivolume manuscript about his life, and he used public forms of newsprint and pamphlet to work out his frustrations and animosity against a series of individuals he felt had balked his rise to prominence. Fitch is the ultimate anti-Franklinian figure, and his writings complicate accounts of republicanism, individualism, and the gendering of the public sphere.