Thomas Paine Historical Association

09/01/2026

This is a 1811 newspaper advertisement offering the chance to "purchase the right of using" a machine for planing wood invented by Paine. Paine had invented the machine to help him build models of his iron bridge. The owner of the machine mentioned in the ad is Paine's good friend Marguerite Brazier Bonneville. Bonneville and her two children lived with Paine in America from 1802 until his death and the family were the main beneficiaries of his will.

09/01/2026

“Liberty, that is, the equality of personal rights.”
— Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice (1797)

Note 3 in the Agrarian Justice text in the new Thomas Paine: Collected Writings draws attention to an important textual variation: “Conway translates the misinterpretation in the Ragouleau edition and writes: ‘The right of voting . . . is inherent in the word Liberty, and constitutes the equality of personal rights.’ That means the right to vote constitutes the equality of personal rights. In the Adlard-Desemmes edition, liberty is defined as an equality of personal rights. This obviously does not have the same meaning.”

Read Agrarian Justice in Volume III (1793–1809) of the new six-volume Thomas Paine: Collected Writings, published by Princeton University Press.

08/30/2026

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Applied Science of Thomas Paine by Albert DiCanzio "By disproving the Ptolemaic cosmology, Galileo gave credibility to notions of geokinesis and of self-directed society, relocating Earth away from the center of planetary motions, while laying groundwork for Paine to compensate for lost centrality by placing a self-directed society at the center of a world formerly dominated by monarchic and dynastic rule."

https://thomaspaine.org/resources-essays/applied-science-of-thomas-paine/

08/29/2026

The Thomas Paine statue in Parc Montsouris in Paris, France. It was dedicated in 1948 and created by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. It depicts Paine standing before the French National Convention arguing against the death penalty for King Louis XVI.

See the TPHA image gallery of Paine monuments for more: https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/monuments/

08/28/2026

"THOMAS PAINE, IRELAND AND THE IRISH GHOST" an article by Fergus Whelan writing in History Ireland (July/August 2026) - Tracing Paine’s reception in Ireland from the publication of Common Sense to the extraordinary Irish circulation of Rights of Man. historyireland.com/thomas-paine-ireland-and-the-irish-ghost

08/28/2026

95 Rue de Richelieu, Paris is the former residence of James Monroe, at that time the American Ambassador to France. Paine lived here for the two years while recovering from his serious health problems following his release from the Luxembourg prison in 1794 and remained with the Monroe family until 1797. Here, Paine worked on Age of Reason Parts I and Part II and wrote Dissertation on the First Principles of Government and Agrarian Justice.

See more at https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/thomas-paine-a-life-in-images/

08/26/2026

Time to sign up for a great new Paine play in New Rochelle from our friends at Tutti Bravi Productions!😀

Common Sense: The Story of Thomas Paine returns September 26, 2026 3pm at Iona University Murphy Auditorium.
Tickets go on sale soon.

08/25/2026

08/25/2026

The first ever newspaper advertisement for Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published in the January 9, 1776 edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.

08/22/2026

A missionary in 1833 Bombay is DEVASTATED that Hindu scholars got their hands on Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, published it in local papers, and started publicly dunking on missionaries with it. He begs the American Bible Society to send reinforcements. 😭

Anti-colonial resistance, Enlightenment-style.



thomaspaine.org/historic-newspapers/tom-paines-works-in-india/