Collections for the Classroom: Social Movements and the Legacy of the American Revolution
100th Annual National Council for the Social Studies Conference
virtual December 6, 2020
The ideals articulated by the American Revolution–liberty, equality, civic responsibility and natural and civil rights–have been thoughtfully examined and refined by social change in America over the past 100 years. Participants will engage with primary source manuscripts, prints and engravings, and material objects to analyze the connection between the ideals of the revolutionary generation and the figures and rhetoric invoked by those leading the fight for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 as well as the struggle for civil rights in the nineteenth century.
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Black Revolutionary War Patriots Memorial preliminary figure
Ed Dwight
1992
The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati
Bronze sculpture of a preliminary figure for the proposed Black Revolutionary War Patriots Memorial in Washington, D.C., by Ed Dwight in Denver, Colorado, 1992. The subject holds a rifle and wears a tri-corner hat and uniform, with a bag on one hip and a powder horn behind the other.
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Partially printed D.S., Hartford, June 7th 1782: receipt of Pay-Table-Committee
1782
The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati
Payment receipt signed for Dick Freedom by Cuff Liberty. Dick Freedom and Cuff Liberty were African American participants in the Revolutionary War who adopted aspirational names during their service. They served in the all-African American Second Company of the Fourth Connecticut Regiment.
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Soldiers in Uniform
Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger
1781
Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
This watercolor was madee by a French officer who served with the combined American and French forces during the Yorktown campaign. Among the four soldiers depicted is an African American member of the First Rhode Island Regiment.