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 2024
Lecture—The Marquis de Lafayette and his Farewell Tour
In 1824-1825, the marquis de Lafayette embarked on a tour of the United States, returning for a final time to the country he helped establish and whose democratic experiment he saw as a model for the rest of the world. Throughout his thirteen-month tour, he visited all twenty-four states of the union, where he was celebrated in each city and town with processions, banquets and receptions, worship services, and visits to important sites. Join historian Alan Hoffman, president of the…
Find out more »April 2024
Author’s Talk— Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence
Through the experiences of William and Benjamin Frank, who enlisted in the Second Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, Dr. Shirley Green, adjunct professor of history at the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University, focuses our attention on the Black experience during the American Revolution by underscoring the significant distinction between free Blacks in military service and those who had been enslaved, and how they responded in different ways to the harsh realities…
Find out more »Lecture – An English Lord in America: Lord Fairfax and George Washington in Revolutionary Virginia
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, played an influential role throughout the life of George Washington. Having been introduced to Washington shortly after settling in Belvoir, Va., in 1747, Fairfax became Washington’s first employer when he hired the sixteen-year-old Virginian to survey his lands west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Although a professed Loyalist throughout the American Revolution, Fairfax was quiet about his sentiments and remained a close friend of Washington until Fairfax’s death in 1781. In this lecture,…
Find out more »May 2024
Lecture—A Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution
Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the marquis de Lafayette. For over fifty incredible years at the heart of the Age of Revolution, he fought courageously on both sides of the Atlantic as a soldier, statesman, idealist, philanthropist and abolitionist. As a teenager, Lafayette ran away from France to join the American Revolution. Returning home a national hero, he helped launch the French Revolution, eventually spending five years locked in an Austrian prison. After his release, Lafayette…
Find out more »Author’s Talk—The Promise of Freedom for Slaves Escaping in British Ships: The Emancipation Revolution, 1740-1807
To Blacks, Britain’s Emancipation Revolution rang out louder than the Declaration of Independence. Drawing from his recent book, historian Theodore Corbett traces the emerging path of freedom for Africans and African Americans in the late-eighteenth century by discussing major social shifts and political events in Great Britain and her American colonies—the Great Awakening, Lord Dunmore’s proclamation and the American Revolution—to demonstrate how they all led to Parliament’s abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807. Registration is…
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