Calendar of Historical Programs

The American founders were men of high intellect, steely integrity, and enormous ambition—but they were not all of one mind. They came from diverse colonies, and they all sought their futures on different horizons. Without reliable maps of even nearby terrain, they contributed in different, and sometimes conflicting, ways to the expansion of a young republic on the seaboard edge of a continent of whose vast expanses they were largely ignorant. Through an examination of six founders, historian Michael Barone…

Founded on November 30, 1973, our library is one of the most important resources in the United States for advanced study on the Revolution and the art of war in the eighteenth century, with more than fifty thousand rare books, manuscripts, prints, broadsides, maps, and modern reference sources. Kicking off a series of events commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of our library, the Institute's executive director, Andy Morse, along with former fellows John Maass, Jake Ruddiman and Iris De Rode, will…

The American Revolution in the West is often neglected from the overall history of the conflict, though it had a significant impact on how it was conducted. Larry Nelson, assistant professor of history at Bowling Green State University, discusses this important component of the war by examining American ambitions in the Old Northwest, the vast uncharted region north and west of the Ohio River; the political goals of the Continental Congress within that region; and the role of Virginia militia…