Supporting scholarship and promoting popular understanding of the American Revolution is central to the work of the American Revolution Institute. The Institute welcomes distinguished scholars and authors to share their insights and discuss their latest research with the public at Anderson House through lectures, author's talks and panel discussions. The Institute also hosts a variety of other historical programs throughout the year, including our Lunch Bite object talks, battlefield tours, special Anderson House tour programs and other events. Many of the events we offer are free.
March 2022
Virtual Author’s Talk – Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World
Charles Cornwallis was a leading figure in late eighteenth-century Great Britain. His career spanned the American War of Independence, Irish Union, the French Revolutionary Wars and the building of the second British Empire in India. Focusing on the first part of his new book, Richard Middleton offers insight into Cornwallis’ time in America and shows that Cornwallis' legacy during the Revolutionary War is significantly more complex than the shortcomings he is most often associated with. The talk will last approximately…
Find out more »Virtual Lecture – Displaced: The Siege of Boston and the “Donation People” of 1775
In 1775, the British army seethed within Boston as the Continental Army besieged the city, compelling thousands of civilians to flee to the surrounding countryside. General George Washington and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress coordinated efforts to support the influx of displaced persons while attempting to protect the Continental Army from smallpox flaring in Boston. Many refugees—including infirm, ill and elderly individuals as well as mothers and children—were removed and relocated to towns across Massachusetts. Katie Turner Getty discusses the plight…
Find out more »April 2022
Lecture – Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero
Dr. Joseph Warren, a respected physician and architect of the Revolutionary movement, was one of the most important figures in early American history—and might have gone on to lead the country had he not been killed at Bunker Hill in 1775. Warren was involved in almost every major protest against British policies in the Boston area for a decade, from the Stamp Act protests to the Boston Massacre to the Boston Tea Party, and his incendiary writings included the famous…
Find out more »Lecture – America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution
Join us for a special lecture at the Charleston Museum in Charleston, S.C., given by Professor C. Bradley Thompson of Clemson University, one of the most thoughtful historians of the American Revolution working today. The American Revolution was a watershed in the principles of government between centuries of monarchical and aristocratic rule and free societies based on moral principles that shaped the Revolutionary ideal of universal equality. Professor Thompson, author of America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American…
Find out more »May 2022
Dinner & Lecture – “Left Newport … Before Daylight and March’d to Chads Ford”: The Landscape of Conflict and the Battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777
Prior to the Battle of Brandywine, the American and British armies maneuvered across a suburban landscape familiar to many residents of Delaware and Pennsylvania. Throughout the days before the battle, however, New Castle County, Delaware, and neighboring Chester County, Pennsylvania, were militarized landscapes. During this period, General George Washington seized the strategic initiative and marched his army from a defensive position along Red Clay Creek in Delaware to the Brandywine River in Pennsylvania. In response to this American shift, General…
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