At the beginning of the story, "the country was still a province of Great Britain"; while, in the end, the “American Revolution has come and gone” (228). Steven Blakemore comments in "Rip Van Winkle". American History Through Literature 1820 - 1870: Irving highlights the transition from colonial America to independent America in the scene where the Union Hotel replaced Nicholaus Vedder's colonial inn and George Washington's portrait replaced that of George III. Which is now the Union Hotel making puns about the new national "union" that is under new management" (991) Many of the changes Winkle experienced can be attributed to the transformation of a "peaceful pre-revolutionary colony" into a “vibrant colony” post-revolutionary America” (Blakemore