In the 19th century, Boston became the focus of the national memory about the coming of the American Revolution. There was some reason for this: Boston was perhaps the most rebellious of the colonies' cities, and the Intolerable Acts passed in response to the Boston Tea Party were the significant escalation that lead to First Continental Congress. That Congress led to another, which in time declared Independence and ran the war against Britain. During the war, Massachusetts sent more soldiers to the army than any other state. Afterwards, Boston-area poet Henry Longfellow wrote "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," which remains a ubiquitous part of American education today, despite the fact that Paul Revere didn't actually do that much of significance that night or at any other point during the war.

Revere's treatment - inflation to the point of becoming synonymous with the Revolution - is typical of the "big names" of Revolutionary Boston. Sam Adams was an important leader of the Boston mob, helping to spark incidents like the Boston Massacre. He was one of Boston's representatives to the Continental Congress. However, his skill was demagoguery, not statecraft or soldiery. Sam Adams was increasingly sidelined as the Revolution went on as being a bit too radical for the more moderate Revolutionaries who steered the country through the war and drafted a conservative national constitution after.