The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country. —Thomas Paine, 1776, Panel 7, 1954, Inscription: No 7 SIEGE, Jacob Lawrence, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56, The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation, © 2019 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
On December 23, 1776, patriot Thomas Paine published The American Crisis, a pamphlet comprised of firsthand accounts of the Revolutionary War. Lawrence did not excerpt the more famous line for the panel’s title caption, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Instead he chose the last line, in which Paine testified to his belief that Americans would need to muster more courage in order to struggle unwaveringly for independence from Britain.
Excerpt from Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, 1776, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC
By the Author of Common Sense
THESE are the times that try men's souls: the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country..