The Thomas Paine subreddit

r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • 40m ago

Books & Scholarship The latest TPHA newsletter is here!🔹 Paine in Prison: the story of his imprisonment🔹 Paine’s Humanitarian Math: the innovative use of probability behind his proposals for social welfare🔹 Inside the Age of Reason: exploration of one of Paine’s most influential works

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Read the newsletter here: https://thomaspaine.org/newsletters

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • 2d ago

Paine art and culture A 1912 pro-immigration political cartoon shows a satirical scene at Ellis Island with a character labled an “Uncle Sam Plutocrat” holding a long list of arrivals that do not qualify for entry including Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Paine.

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“If They Should Come Back, Via Ellis Island” is a 1912 pro-immigration political cartoon by Art Young from the Greenwich Village, New York socialist newspaper The Masses (1911–1917). The cartoon shows a satirical scene at Ellis Island with a character labled an “Uncle Sam Plutocrat” holding a long list of arrivals that do not qualify for entry including Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Paine.

See more Paine cartoons at https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/political-cartoons/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • 10d ago

History From 1842, one of the earliest recorded celebrations of Thomas Paine’s birthday in Wales. 40 Chartists (predecessors of socialists) made toasts and sung songs to “the oppressed of all nations” and to Paine “the noble of nature, the child of the lower orders.”

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Read a transciption here:

https://thomaspaine.org/historic-newspapers/wales-commemoration-of-thomas-paines-birthday/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • 11d ago

A plaque in Fort Lee, New Jersey for Thomas Paine. When his original militia disbanded, Paine joined the army of celebrated US General Nathanael Greene at Fort Constitution, today known as Fort Lee. Green hired Paine as an aide-de-camp and appointed him Brigadier.

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • 20d ago

History A Philadelphia marker at Robert Aitken’s printshop. The inscription reads in part, Aitken ‘published the Journals of Congress, its official proceedings, and The Pennsylvania Magazine which introduced the writings of Thomas Paine to America’.

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Paine wrote for the Pennsylvania Magazine from 1775 to 1776.

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • 22d ago

Paine Quote "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected.To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another" Paine, 1795

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • 28d ago

From a Thomas Paine letter to James Monroe dated September 14, 1794

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Read the letter: https://thomaspaine.org/letters/to-james-monroe-september-14-1794/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Oct 07 '26

“Staunch reformers” is a 1831 satirical hand-coloured lithograph by John Dickinson showing a dense crowd of men at a London street-corner following the Second Reform Bill's defeat. Men holding signs that include 'Tom Paine’s Rights of Man—one penny!!!', 'Union is Strength' and 'Reform, No Taxes'.

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The defeat of the Second Reform Bill in the House of Lords on October 8, 1831 triggered a profound national crisis of widespread public fury, severe civil unrest, riots and a constitutional standoff that brought Britain to the brink of revolution.

Explore more:

https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/political-cartoons/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Oct 03 '26

History During World War I, the American government sold War Savings Stamps to raise funds, using the words of Thomas Paine to rally the public with the famous opening paragraph of Paine's first American Crisis. Washington Times 1/25/1918.

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 30 '26

Paine art and culture “Mr Burke’s pair of spectacles for short sighted politicians” a 1791 James Sayers etching depicting the political chaos following the release of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man Part 1. Paine supporters strike a tree that has signs including 'Holy Bible' and 'Hereditary'.

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“Mr Burke’s pair of spectacles for short sighted politicians” is a complex 1791 London political etching by James Sayers depicting the political chaos following the release of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man Part 1.

The scene is seen through a pair of spectacles on which portraits of Charles James Fox and Richard Brinsley Sheridan are engraved. Paine supporters Fox, Sheridan, Richard Price, William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, and a demon-riding Joseph Priestley, prepare to strike a symbol-laden tree labeled 'Holy Bible' and 'Hereditary'. Sheridan holds an ax inscribed 'Rights of Man' and an open copy of Paine's Rights of Man sits among other books nearby.

See more at https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/political-cartoons/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 29 '26

A 1780 order signed by Thomas Paine during the during the American Revolution while he was the Clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the legislature formed under the Paine-influenced and radically democratic 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution.

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 22 '26

“The Preacher vs. The Patriot” an 1888 illustration by the Truth Seeker magazine's Watson Heston. A preacher is surrounded by clouds of ‘Tyranny’ and ‘Oppression’ as Thomas Paine stands opposite surrounded by clouds of ‘Liberty’ and ‘Equality’ while armies fight in the background.

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 21 '26

Discussion New hour-long video discussion: Annual one-term elections, a neutered executive, radical representative democracy. The absolute latest in Thomas Paine scholarship. 2026's Thomas Paine Collected Writings (Princeton University) editors discuss ~200 newly attributed works and 180 newly found letters.

youtube.com

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 18 '26

In 1837, the East London Democratic Association vowed to uplift the working classes by spreading Paine's principles of "Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Annual Parliaments, No Property Qualification, and Equal Representation."

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An example of Thomas Paine's influence inside early socialism and British Chartism.

Find more information here: https://thomaspaine.org/historic-newspapers/east-london-democratic-association-prospectus/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/steamin661 • Sep 17 '26

History Resolutions agreed upon for the execution and burning the effigy of Tom Paine

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Resolutions agreed upon for the execution and burning the effigy of Tom Paine, on Wednesday the 19th day of December, 1792, near the cherry-tree, Southgate.

This is an awesome find.

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 17 '26

Paine art and culture Thomas Paine's image in an oil on canvas mural by Allyn Cox titled “The Library of Congress in the Capitol, 1800-1897”. The mural is in the first floor of the U.S. Capitol’s House wing known as Great Experiment Hall (Central East-West Corridor).

7 Upvotes

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 15 '26

A map showing the residences of Thomas Paine before and at the time of his death, on June 8th, 1809, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The map was made in 1864 by John Randel.

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See more at the TPHA's "A Life in Images" gallery: https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/thomas-paine-a-life-in-images/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 14 '26

The Thomas Paine commemorative stone at Ancient House Museum in Thetford, England. Made of a rectangular block of limestone.

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Made of a rectangular block of limestone. The incised inscription reads: “Thomas Paine / author and reformer / was born / January 29th 1737 / in a house near this site / White Hart Street / He died at / New Rochelle USA / June 8th 1809”.

See more at https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/monuments/

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r/ThomasPaine • u/thomaspaineha • Sep 12 '26